Author's Note: thanks for reading!
"Recently on the Bachelorette…"
Kageyama awoke with cotton in his mouth and a painful headache sprouting behind his eyes. It was hot and humid, his sheets were tangled up around his ankles and halfway off the bed, and the midmorning sunlight that streamed in through the crack in the blinds burned his eyes.
"Ugh, I think I drank too much," someone muttered in a gruff grumble. There was the sound of someone shifting above him, trying to get comfortable again. "Close the curtains, will yah?"
Kageyama stared uncomprehendingly at the wooden planks above his bed. He was in a bunk bed. All he could really remember from last night was being so exhausted that he had almost fallen asleep on his feet at the rose ceremony. And now he had a new bunkmate.
He turned to his side. It felt weird not to check his phone for the time or those long, forwarded-to-twenty-people emails from work. One quick look around showed four suitcases neatly shuffled off to the side of the room, two of them his own, but there was no clock to speak of.
A little freaked out by the situation, Kageyama crawled out of bed. He pulled at the bottom of his pajama top self-consciously even though his new roommate was curled up protectively under a layer of blankets and not paying him any attention. Making his way to the window, he dutifully closed the curtains, and though it only removed about one-third of the light, his roommate poked his head out curiously.
Kageyama squinted, trying to remember the name and coming up blank. Terumisha? Ehhh, it was best not to risk it. "Good morning," he offered cordially instead. Or was it afternoon?
"Mhhh," the other man said, turning on his back and facing away from him, burrowing into his sheets with a grunt.
Instead of feeling slighted, Kageyama appreciated the chance it allowed for him to quickly get dressed. He was used to changing in front of other people — volleyball locker rooms were the antithesis of private, after all — but everything was too new and different that even the appearance of privacy was a blessing right now.
Not sure about what today entailed, Kageyama settled on comfort instead of fashion: a black t-shirt with the words "SETTER SOUL" in bold white kanji, a pair of skinny jeans, and some fuzzy socks Suga had given him for good luck. They had white volleyballs whizzing around his ankles, and it made Kageyama force down an uneven smile at the reminder of his kind friend.
He tip-toed out of the room, carefully closing the door behind him with a soft click. He stood there for a moment, gathering his thoughts, trying to remember the fastest way to the kitchen.
"Oh, Kageyama-kun!"
He slowly turned around to see a small blonde woman with a lanyard around her neck holding out a clip-on microphone. "I have your mic here," she told him, waiting for him to nod before reaching over and pinning it effortlessly to his shirt.
Another staff member behind the blonde arched a brow, his eyes skimming up and down and then away, and Kageyama frowned, peering through his eyelashes at his old shirt and worn out socks. Oh. Was he not allowed to be casual, like, ever? Shit, he had only packed a handful of nice outfits for the dates and rose ceremonies; most of it was exercise clothes or day-in casuals for the time he was stuck inside the mansion.
Oh well. At least Kiyoko (and soon the world) would be getting to know the "real" him.
Shrugging, Kageyama nodded respectfully to the tiny boom operator, glowered at the judgemental one, and then headed very purposefully away from them.
And promptly tumbled right into another person, knocking the other man to the ground with a surprised cry. Kageyama managed to catch himself before his face kissed the floor, but in turn, he found himself looking down at a fluff of bright orange hair and big brown eyes caged between his arms. Hinata Shouyou pouted up at him, his eyebrows narrowed into a glare even as his face was turning the brightest shade of pink Kageyama had ever seen. Cute, he thought unbidden, and then wanted to die on the spot.
"Sorry," he muttered quickly, trying to untangle himself. Hinata blinked himself back into awareness and then was also twisting and shifting in a panic. It made it that much harder to get back up, and Kageyama soon found himself tangled up even worse than before. It was like they were wrestling, but badly. "Oi! Stop moving, dumbass! I'm trying to get off of you!"
"You're the dumbass, Bakageyama!" was the high-pitched counter argument.
"WHAT?"
"You heard me!" the moron shouted, finally deciding to just shimmy backwards on his butt, abandoning any form of decorum. Kageyama watched him, glaring hotly. Now safely free, Hinata bounced up again, grimaced in his general direction without meeting his eyes, and dramatically marched away like a child.
"What the f—" he heard behind him, but Kageyama didn't care to stick around.
His head hurt, he was hungry, and now he was also pissed off. His face probably looked scary, because a few men hanging out in the hallway jumped out of his way. Noya-san might have said something to him, one of the few unbothered by his black aura, but Kageyama didn't pay him any attention, focused single-mindedly on getting breakfast.
"Tobio-chan!"
Kageyama spun on his heel, abandoning that route for another hallway. There had to be a way to get food without talking to another contestant.
"Rude," the man whined loudly, but there weren't any stomping feet behind him, so he was safe for now.
"You're not having a mental breakdown on the first morning, are you?" a stranger asked, peering up at him, uncrossing his arms, and pushing off the wall to give the broody physical therapist in training his full attention. He matched his steps, even though Kageyama had sped up in an attempt to avoid talking.
Kageyama vaguely remembered him, but couldn't say where.
The man seemed to recognize his struggle and smiled timidly, easily keeping pace. "I'm Yahaba Shigeru." When there was no response, he tried again, "the elementary school teacher from Miyagi?"
He had interrupted the man's chat with Kiyoko last night. Was this about that?
"Look, just take it slow today, okay?" It was sound advice, and Kageyama wanted to take it, but he was tired of being around so many people and hungry from not eating since a small breakfast yesterday from before he had flown over... and oh maybe he was having a mental breakdown already. That wasn't a good sign.
The man rested a hand on his shoulder, pulling them to a stop. "Hey, relax. We might be competitors, but no one wants you to have a panic attack. There are psychologists on call if you need to talk to someone."
Right, he needed to get his head on right. "I just. Tired; food," he said, making absolutely no sense. Ahhh. Someone help him.
Luckily, Yahaba managed to understand, even if he looked even more confused and concerned than before. "Uh, yeah, the kitchen is down the stairs to your left. Just around the corner."
"Thank you!" He bowed down in a quick nod and speed-walked in the given direction.
Food, he needed food. Then he could handle everything else.
Luckily, he didn't run into anyone else on his way there. Most of the other men in the house were nursing hangovers after drinking too much after the rose ceremony, and it was basically an empty dining room. Some time later, Noya-san and Tanaka-san came in laughing loudly and exchanging boisterous claps on the shoulder just as Kageyama was taking his plate of scrambled eggs and a spinach-kale smoothie to the table.
"That looks good," the race car driver noted, smiling widely and squinting up at him. "I want that, Ryuu!" he shouted.
Tanaka sent a wide-eyed look over Noya's head. "Rule one," he told the taller man seriously, and Kageyama straightened up at the attention, "don't ever let Noya cook. He'll set the house on fire. I'm serious, bro."
"Bro, why'd you do me dirty like that?" Noya complained, but changed directions from the frying pan to the fridge. He rummaged through the varied and plentiful supply of alcoholic drinks — from ciders to ale to champagne to wine — before ultimately deciding on milk and a box of off-brand cereal.
Kageyama, still standing with his plate and drink in hand, watched as the smaller contestant gave his given breakfast choice the ugliest look he could manage, like it was the ultimate form of betrayal.
"I can make you some eggs?" Kageyama said, a bit out of sorts. Tanaka turned to him like he had just declared himself a millionaire and was planning on donating all of his money to a charity of his choosing.
"Tobio-chan's making breakfast?" Oikawa interrupted, smiling, his eyes crinkling behind a pair of designer eyeglasses. He sent Kageyama a smirk as he paraded over to the couches, raising a hand in thanks. "I'll have mine sunny side up, please and thanks!"
Hinata poked his head in warily, like he was scouting out the area first, and Kageyama stared back, nonplussed.
"Um, can I have some too, please?" the smaller man asked, pouting down at his feet. "I suck at making food." He raised his head, staring at Kageyama and imploring him to help with big, innocent eyes. The taller man turned his back on him, meaning to set his food and cup down, but then like magic, the redhead was right in front of him, blocking his way and standing way too close for comfort.
"No, wait, listen to me for a second, okay? One time, I was trying to make pancakes for my sister Natsu, and I flipped the entire pancake onto the ceiling fan and it had little chocolate pieces that exploded all over."
Tanaka burst out laughing behind him, and Kagayama couldn't stop staring in blank wonder. Hinata took his look as one of disinterest and continued, faster and more desperate, "And one time I tried to make rice but didn't know how it was cooked—"
"There are directions on the bag," Oikawa muttered under his breath but also way too amused by the entire situation.
"—so I put the rice in water and the water kept evaporating or something so I just added more water and then it came out to be a rice porridge and it was gross, Kageyama-kun! Gross! Please!"
"Okay, okay," Kagayama acquiesced, roughly shoving Hinata away from him. "I'll make everyone breakfast, just get away from me."
"Ohhh, thank you!" Hinata squealed, ignoring Kageyama's one stipulation and glomping onto him in a tight hug, nearly knocking over his scrambled eggs. "Thank you!"
"Geroff!" he hissed, making a scary face, but instead of cowering and hiding behind Tanaka, Hinata just laughed brightly. Kageyama frowned, finally able to put his breakfast down. The short dancer was like that one children's story: if you give a mouse a cookie; Kageyama couldn't exactly remember how it went down, but he knew Hinata was the mouse.
After making everyone their personal breakfast (even stupid Oikawa's stupid eggs), Kageyama sat himself down with the other contestants. It was all so normal, the men chatting peacefully as they munched on some bacon and eggs. It was normal and nice, and Kageyama finally felt like his headache was easing up, like he could breathe normally.
As he settled in his chair, Oikawa-san looked over at him, no disgust on his face, just a quiet sort of thoughtfulness, and continued like he had never paused in his story, "And I'm not saying it was aliens, but it was aliens."
"Pfft, aliens don't exist," another contestant said as he passed through the kitchen, sipping on a bottle of cider even though it was probably only around noon.
Yahaba, who had joined them near the end of the conversation, overdramatically put an arm in front of Oikawa, pretending to hold him back. "Uh oh. If I were you, I'd scatter. I don't know how long I'll be able to hold him off."
"Aliens are totally real!" Oikawa answered, outraged, with no trace of artificiality for the hidden cameras. He leaned forward, "Listen here, punk, we live in a galaxy with over 200 billion stars and many probably have at least one exoplanet. Now take that and multiply it by the 100 billion galaxies in the universe, and you're telling me aliens don't exist?"
As interesting as this was (it actually was really interesting, Kageyama had never seen this side of his rival before), someone interrupted the conversation with a high shout and lots of hand waving.
"We're getting our first date card!" one of the men announced proudly, nodding to someone behind him.
The contestants watched as the reality TV show host walked into the dining room, friendly and chipper. "Good job surviving night one, fellas. We're just going to wait on the stragglers to finish getting mic'd up and then I'll hand over Kiyoko's date card."
Oh yeah. Kageyama had almost forgotten why he was here, stuck in a mansion with twenty-three other men. They were competitors for Kiyoko Shimizu's love and partnership. The men straightened up, the playfulness from before now tenser with game-ready anticipation.
Bring it on.
...o0o…
The date card, written in loopy cursive, only said: "Let's get down and dirty," and was for eight contestants: Oikawa, Yahaba, Noya, Tanaka, Terushima, and three others he couldn't remember.
"There's no way Kiyoko wrote that," Suga noted through a bite of ramen noodles as an ad for toothpaste played in the background. Daichi wasn't joining them tonight, busy with work, so it was just the two of them. "What did it mean anyway? Gimme the spoilers."
"It was mud wrestling," Kageyama explained, not looking up from his notes about one of his client's worsening knee problems. "Almost no one enjoyed it. Oikawa-san spent three hours redoing his hair as soon as he got back." Suga snorted but Kageyama turned to him, dead-serious. "We timed him."
A text lit up his phone and, distracted, he looked over only to frown.
Unknown Number: Hey! Want to hang tonight? I'm here for a show and bored? Text me back, idiot! ୧(•̀ᗝ•́)૭ ୧(⇀‸↼‶)૭
Kageyama debated saying "wrong number" for the third time, but instead decided to just delete the message off of his phone. The person would eventually realize he or she wasn't talking to a friend and would leave him alone.
On the screen, the show finished with its ad break. Oikawa was looking pissy and uncomfortable and then Noya tossed a handful of mud at his face and the crowd exploded in "ohhhh's" and "AHHHHH's."
Suga wheezed out a laugh. "Oh my god, I love that little race car driver, he's wild! What a group!"
He didn't know the half of it.
...o0o…
Most of the first day was spent exploring the mansion and freshening up for the group date the next day. After they read out the date card and speculated over its meaning, the group dispersed to go about their business. A few contestants monopolized the couch and exchanged brief pleasantries and shallow get-to-know-you's with free flowing alcoholic drinks in their hands. It was a good time to size up the competition; the rest of the men, however, mostly used the time to unpack and settle in.
Kageyama officially met his roommate: a spiky-haired blond with a tongue piercing and a carefree attitude named Terushima Yuji. They were polite, but that was about it. Kageyama tended to avoid him more often than not.
When night rolled around, Kageyama felt obligated to have at least one drink with the other contestants (no one else bowed out, so he didn't want to be that guy). He was one of the last to make his way outside, most of the other men were already dipping their toes in the pool or hanging out in a wide circle near the beach chairs.
He was still wearing his outfit from that morning, and even with the dim lighting, a few men gave his socks an amused glance, the white fabric drawing attention he otherwise wouldn't have gotten in the daytime. He fiddled with the strings on his hoodie, focused on untangling the threads instead of facing the social limelight. But if Suga were here, he'd tell him to go make friends. If he thought about it practically, he might even be on the next group date (or, god-forbid, the one-on-one), so it was best to get some allies.
"Oikawa-san," Kageyama started quietly, shuffling in place.
Oikawa scowled down at him, interrupting whatever Kageyama was trying to say with a petty, "NOPE! Stupid! You're stupid! Go away!" He stuck out his tongue, and pulled down the bottom of an eyelid. He wasn't wearing his glasses, and it made the brown of his eyes, reflecting the blue light from the pool, look even colder.
Kageyama didn't know why he expected anything different. He frowned, but obediently left to find better conversation elsewhere. In the end, he gave a few one-word answers to the pity-variety questions from Noya and Tanaka's group. Mostly, he just listened to them talk about their life before they had applied to be on the reality show.
He never noticed how Hinata kept sneaking glances before turning away resolutely, only to repeat the process a few minutes later.
After a few drinks, he called it quits, claiming he was tired. Noya and Tanaka wished him a good night, the others a bit too wrapped up in their conversation on ex-girlfriends to even notice him leaving.
He'd have better luck tomorrow, he told himself, trying to keep positive. He was asleep before his roommate returned.
The next day, the mansion was quieter. Since the eight men on the group date had an early start, the atmosphere was a bit more subdued as some of the men fantasized about what they were missing out on. A few went over to the confession camera to complain and expel their worries about not having enough time to get to know the leading lady before the rose ceremony at the end of the week.
Kageyama had been in the habit of keeping to himself, but the silence was eating at his calm and the threat of being ostracized and abandoned on a potential group date set his mind spinning and plunging in a downward spiral. So here he was, standing outside Hinata's door holding a deck of cards and scowling at his feet.
He couldn't bring himself to knock.
"Are you going to come in or..?" someone asked him, and Kageyama looked down over his shoulder to see a familiar fluff of orange hair and bright eyes staring at him, amused.
Hinata wasn't even in his room. Oh god, how long had the other man watched him dawdle? Why was this his life?
"Uh," he said, facing the other man, whose tips of his curly hair barely even reached his shoulders. Hinata was so short, it was actually amazing. "Um, cards?" he said, shaking his head to get back on track. He shoved the playing deck in the other man's general direction, hoping his face looked friendly and hopeful and not freaked out and panicky. He swallowed and tried again, "Do you want to play? Cards, that is? With me?"
"Sure?" Hinata said, arching an eyebrow and looking a bit more wary now. But he had said yes, so that was a good thing! Right?
Maybe he should have asked one of the other guys. He didn't exactly have the best track record with the dancer. But Hinata seemed to like everyone here, he was literal sunshine and daisies and no one had a bad thing to say about him, even Oikawa, who was the ultimate drama queen.
"What games do you know?" Hinata asked, pulling his door wide open for Kageyama. He didn't wait for the taller man to come inside, instead plopping himself down on the floor and patting the space next to him with a friendly enough smile. "I only know War."
Oh. Kageyama hadn't exactly thought this through very well. The only card games he knew were the ones Suga and Daichi made up as they went along. He vaguely knew how to play War. It was simple enough.
It was indeed simple enough. Kageyama proceeded to dominate the entire five games they played. And he discovered Hinata had a competitive streak to rival his own, which was saying something.
After losing for the sixth time, Hinata slowly set the shuffled cards on the floor. Kageyama, still smiling from his victory, started to wilt at the seriousness on the other contestant's face. Maybe this hadn't been the best idea for making a new friend. Who wanted to keep losing over and over again? Maybe he should have thrown a few games in the name of their budding friendship? Except that went against every moral code he had, so that was out of the question anyway.
"I challenge you to a race!" Hinata declared, standing up and putting his hands on his hips, staring down at him (for once in his life).
Kageyama couldn't refuse.
They had to stop after the tenth run, due to the sun dipping low into the horizon and the lack of good lighting around the entire perimeter of the mansion. Kageyama swallowed down a lungful of air, hunching over his knees as he heard Hinata do the same next to him.
With a breathy sigh, the dancer flopped onto the grass, splayed out and breathing heavily. Kageyama, heaving and red in the face, plopped on his butt next to him, staring vacantly at the treeline.
"I won, that one," he said, between breaths. "We're five-five now."
Hinata slowly turned to him, his chest rising and falling rapidly. His face was offended. "Only because you got that second head start!"
Kageyama ducked his face to hide his grin, missing Hinata's own fond smile.
"Five-five," he said again.
"Next time," Hinata returned.
"Next time," Kageyama agreed.
They managed to snag two of the four showers just in time, because when Kageyama was getting out, rubbing a towel over his hair and fitted snugly in an oversized but sinfully soft pajama set, in trooped eight very dirty, stinky, sweaty men. Oikawa looked ready to murder someone. Noya looked like he was having the time of his life.
Mud wrestling. Kageyama wondered what was in store for them for the next few dates.
.
tbc
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Author's Note: I hope I didn't mislead anyone into thinking this was going to be a serious story, lol. Thanks for reading!