It's an unpopular opinion and you know it, but the truth is that Hinata-senpai feels way more intimidating than Kageyama-senpai.
You can perfectly imagine the looks on your teammates' faces if you told them this, so you don't. Everyone has seen —well, so to speak— the flames coming out of Kageyama's head when he gets really angry, when his face twists in such a manner it makes it impossible to believe that it will ever go back to normal. Even the taller and tougher players from opposing teams very often take a step back, spooked by the glare of his narrowed eyes.
"The good thing about it," Miyake said once, "is that Kageyama-senpai is sure to cure a hiccup."
Nakahara threw a ball at his head, but it's more likely he did it because the joke was terrible than because a senpai was disrespected.
But the truth is that you don't find Kageyama-senpai that scary. More often than not, when he narrows his eyes and seems like he's shooting radioactive glares at the world at large, it just means that he's focused on something else. It's not really his fault if his default expression makes him look like a potential mass murderer.
"I was born with this face!" he often shouts back, a reaction Hinata-senpai seems to find great fun in provoking.
Hinata-senpai might be a tad suicidal.
As for the flames that sprout from his head —you're not sure they're entirely metaphorical— many times his anger seems to arise more from concern than anything else. Like that one time Hinata-senpai took a bad fall after jumping for a spike and his yell of pain reverberated in the whole gym. By then, you'd seen him fall many times, just to jump to his feet an instant later, but you'd never heard him let out a mere whimper. Everyone got out of the way when Kageyama-senpai flung himself at him, his face very white, fumes practically coming out of his ears.
"You gigantic dumbass, I've told you a million times, you're so stupid…"
The string of insults was lost into Hinata-senpai's ear as Kageyama-senpai fell on his knees by his side (that's got to have hurt). Hinata-senpai tried to get up —he wasn't bleeding anywhere, at least— but, as soon as he placed his right foot on the floor, his face twisted in pain, and then everyone saw the flames dancing around Kageyama's head. With not so much as a blink, he scooped up Hinata-senpai in his arms like a newlywed to his bride, ignoring all of his protests and the taunts from Tsukishima-senpai. Yamaguchi-senpai ran to get the first aid kit and Takeda-sensei announced that it was probably a twisted ankle, which had started to swell up. The look on Hinata-senpai's face, with his lips turned into a pout, made him look like a twelve-year-old throwing a tantrum, but only Tsukishima-senpai was daring enough to point it out. Yachi-senpai, already immune to it all, put an icepack on his ankle as he yelled from the bench to Tsukishima-senpai, who was laughing without the slightest attempt at hiding it.
Luckily for everyone, it was not a serious injury and he could come back to play soon enough because, even though his focus remained as amazing as always, everybody could see the stormy clouds gathering around Kageyama-senpai every time he looked at the court and his partner wasn't there.
After that episode, maybe Kageyama-senpai felt less scary because you're pretty sure you'll never invoke his wrath by hurting Hinata-senpai in any way, so you can consider yourself quite safe from the roaring fire of his fury.
Besides, his withering glares feel a lot less significant after you realize that he glares just the same at the vending machine whenever he buys a milk carton.
Once, when you'd just started playing at Karasuno, you asked why Kageyama-senpai wasn't the captain, when he's by far the best player on the team, or maybe Tsukishima-senpai, who seems better at strategizing. Matsudaira —who has forbidden you to add "senpai" because it's fucking long enough as it is— kept gaping at you as though you had three heads or maybe none.
"I'm not sure if you've noticed it, because you haven't been here for long, Konoe," he said at last. "But between Kageyama-kun and Tsukishima-kun they have the people skills of an electric saw in the hands of Godzilla. And I'm saying this with all due respect to my senpais."
After some time on the team, you have to admit there's some truth to his words. Kageyama-senpai's talent for volley does not translate well when he has to deal with people, whether he has to explain a new play, which he does in that incomprehensible language that only the captain and maybe Miyake can understand, or whether he's trying to cheer someone up. Oh my God, it'll be none too soon if you could forget right this instant of that time he tried to comfort you after serving out of bounds. Yachi-senpai assures you that he's gotten loads better at it, to which Tsukishima-senpai adds imagine how bad he used to be.
Tsukishima-senpai doesn't seem as terrible as he did at first either, back when his sarcastic tone was likely to cut through marble. Well, he's just as sarcastic, but he doesn't sound so poisonous to your ears anymore. Maybe you've grown immune to it. Or maybe it's because, as the only other horribly tall guy on the team, he's always the one to give you useful advice to take the most advantage of your long legs and arms, which have always made you feel like a clumsy giraffe off the court. Even so, it's likely that Matsudaira is right when he says that he lacks some people skills, or maybe he just prefers to leave that part of handling the team to Hinata-senpai and Yamaguchi-senpai.
You can admit, without a shadow of a doubt, that the captain and the vice captain are way better at motivating the players. There's something about Hinata-senpai that convinces you that yes, you can manage that play that looks impossible, if you only try hard enough, if only you can believe that all it takes is to make the jump. It's impossible to argue with him at times, such is the certainty in his voice and the force of the gleam in his gaze, telling you all the time c'mon, c'mon, try, with no need for words.
And you can't avoid feeling some of the fire in his gaze running through your veins, and maybe it's true that it only takes making that first jump, maybe the only absurd thing is to hesitate.
When even Hinata-senpai's absolute faith is not enough to sustain your own, then Yamaguchi-senpai is likely to be your best option, because he understands self-doubt, uncertainty, and fear better than the captain, who sometimes seems not to fear anything at all. Yamaguchi-senpai is also often an unending source of common sense, something that's sorely lacking in a team like Karasuno, full of foolhardy idiots —verbatim from the coach, who is not well-known for keeping a cool head either.
Sometimes, when after practice you stop by the coach's store to grab a bite, it's almost easy to forget the due respect to your senpais. Like when Hinata-senpai steals a meat bun from Kageyama-senpai, who starts to chase after him shouting expletives, while Tsukishima-senpai snorts an insult or two, Yamaguchi-senpai chokes on his own laughter and Yachi-senpai cries out a warning, and what if they slip and smash their heads right in front of the first years, traumatizing them forever. She looks genuinely worried about it and Sasaki-senpai reassures her that she shouldn't worry about that, because it would toughen up the first years, and that earns him a smack on the back of his head from Matsudaira. Kageyama-senpai manages to grab Hinata-senpai in a headlock and he rasps his knuckles on the orange mop while the captain screams that he'll make him go bald and really, at that moment, they look like two grade schoolers. It seems unbelievable that they are the very same boys that take everyone's breath away with their impossible plays, the same ones you watched on TV two years ago when, after what seemed like a long losing streak, Karasuno made it back to Nationals, right when you decided what high school you would go to.
Soon you will remember, when you, Itagaki, and Hayashi have dropped from exhaustion to the floor after a brutal practice, unable to get up, and then Hinata-senpai's face, circled by an orange halo, covers your entire field of vision.
"C'mon, guys, get up, you still got another lap left." At the horrified and inarticulate whimper that one of you lets escape, he adds: "How do you expect to win Nationals with so little stamina?"
"Do you really think we'll win Nationals?" you blurt out without thinking, because this is not the first time Hinata-senpai says something like this, as though winning the Nationals was a done deal, as though Karasuno had ever been close to achieve it.
Someone —probably Hayashi— gasps loudly: it occurs to you that you might have put your foot in your mouth quite deeply.
Hinata-senpai doesn't look angry. He tilts his head to the side, his forehead a bit creased, as though he didn't quite get your question.
"Of course we're gonna win Nationals. What else is there?"
There is something in his voice that goes beyond certainty, and makes cold sweat run down your spine. His hazel eyes shimmer with a strange light, an intensity in them that betrays a whirlwind of electric energy barely contained. And you won't be able to explain it, because you're almost 1.90m tall whereas Hinata-senpai doesn't even reach 1.70m but, in that moment, his presence seems to go beyond his small frame, it seems to fill the entire room.
The effect vanishes between one blink and the next, and then he becomes once more the boy with messy orange hair halfway held back in a ponytail, with an easy smile and the never-ending enthusiasm. But you have seen it, even if it was for a mere instant, and you won't forget anytime soon that intensity that promises a forest fire.
The truth is that, to you, Hinata-senpai is way more intimidating than Kageyama-senpai and, from that moment onwards, you throw yourself headfirst into training even if it means working your fingers —and legs— to the bone. Maybe it's not just that you find Hinata-senpai intimidating, maybe it's also that you can't help believing him. You notice that it happens to everyone else as well. No one is willing to be left behind, and least of all Kageyama-senpai, who seems like he has a competition of his own going on with the captain. Somehow, even when the rest of you can barely stand on your feet, those two still have strength left to race each other and shout the number of wins and losses.
"Wow, to think they're getting to the three hundreds," Yachi-senpai comments, in that tone soaked in nostalgia that, at times, seems to cling to the third years like a cold.
Tsukishima-senpai rolls his eyes.
"They even compete to see which one finishes showering first, the two morons…"
"It tires me just to watch them," Tomizawa-senpai confesses and Yamaguchi-senpai nods.
"Me too, and I should be used to it by now…"
When they finally tire themselves out it's like the flame of a candle suddenly going out, and they fall asleep on top of a pile of mats in a corner of the gym or during the trip back after a game, Hinata-senpai's head on Kageyama-senpai's shoulder, the latter's cheek resting on top of a cushion of orange hair. After a while, you get used to it and you don't even blink when Yachi-senpai pulls out her cell to take a picture.
"Yachi-san, don't you have enough pictures by now?" Miyake asks and she shrugs.
"They're for Suga-san."
Yamaguchi-senpai frowns.
"Is he setting up an album or a show at a gallery…?"
Hinata-senpai and Kageyama-senpai look too comfortable to be upset by the stares and comments, and it gets to the point you no longer pay attention to it. Falling asleep on top of each other is far from the strangest thing you've seen them do: personal space doesn't seem to exist among them, and more than once you've seen Kageyama-senpai giving the captain a piggyback ride, and the latter stealing from him the last milk carton, unconcerned by murderous glares or indirect kissing.
Nakahara refuses to speak of what he saw that day he ran back to the club room for something he'd forgotten, and he came back pale and wide-eyed (and without whatever he'd gone looking for in the first place.) He didn't let a pip escape no matter how much Miyake and Hayashi insisted. You chose not to ask.
Some things are best left unknown.
Karasuno makes it to Nationals that year and maybe the hardest thing for the first years is remembering that this is not the end, and reaching the top of the prefecture only means that the real challenge begins now.
Tokyo looks huge and bright compared to the towns in Miyagi, and the gym feels gigantic and dazzling with the gleam of the lights and the flashes of the cameras. Photo cameras and TV cameras because yes, you've made it to Nationals.
Now, like Hinata-senpai says with chilling calmness, you only have to keep winning until you're Japan's Nº1.
A piece of cake, sure.
It's easy to forget that the other teams here have also fought tooth and nail to be at the top of their prefectures. They've also shed blood, sweat, and tears in the gym, in quite a literal way at times. It's easy to forget until you face them and no one is willing to give an inch, and they throw everything they have in every play. Hinata-senpai is not the only one now capable of rolling out the court to receive a ball that was inexorably headed for the wall. Everyone is more aware than ever that this is their only chance: if the ball drops it's game over and there's no do-over.
Perhaps you don't get to play as much as you'd like, but even from the bench you feel the electricity of the ball flying over the net, the current that courses through all of your teammates and comes back multiplied by all of them, as though Karasuno, at the time, was only one being, only one heart beating, an urge to win impossible to individualize.
From the bench, your teammates seem even more amazing. Miyake and Nakahara don't hesitate before diving for the ball, Tsukishima-senpai appears to read the minds of his opponents when he blocks them, Matsudaira spikes with such strength that the ball bounces off the opposing libero's arms, Yamaguchi-senpai's serve is frightening. On the court, Sasaki-senpai moves at a prodigious speed, and even Tomizawa-senpai, Hayashi, and Itagaki, who spend most of the time on the bench, find their moment to shine.
The entire stadium holds their collective breath, though, whenever Kageyama-senpai tosses to Hinata-senpai from some ridiculous spot on the court and the latter spikes the ball as though it were the easiest thing in the world, as though the ball were an extension of his own hand. Even if they can see it coming, more often than not the boys on the other team can't react fast enough to stop the ball from hitting the wooden floor, always a step, a second too late. The crowd on the stands lets out a collective gasp and Karasuno's supporters grow hoarse shouting their encouragement, and so do the teammates on the bench and even if your throat burns, you keep on cheering.
But, as amazing as it is to watch from the sidelines, nothing can compare to living it on the court, and to know that the ball that's just hit your fingertips is the one that scores, or the feeling of your arms sending the ball back to the setter.
You're there on the court when the ball hits the floor at the other side of the net for the last time. There's the final buzzer and, for a moment, you hear nothing but the rushing of blood in your ears. You feel the hit of Miyake's body crashing against you; Nakahara throwing his arms around your shoulders, the pats from Matsudaira on your back; you hear the loud cheers from Sasaki-senpai and Tomizawa-senpai, the roar of laughter from coach Ukai; you see Yachi-senpai bouncing on the bench, Hayashi and Itagaki hugging, Takeda-sensei, open-mouthed; Tsukishima-senpai, stunned, accepting a high five from Yamaguchi-senpai.
And Hinata-senpai dashes across the court like a train gone off the rails and throws himself into the arms of Kageyama-senpai, who stumbles a couple of steps backwards but manages to grab him from under his thighs as Hinata-senpai squeezes his neck with his arms.
Hinata-senpai is saying something incomprehensible because his face is pressed against his shoulder and Kageyama-senpai smiles, for real, not the smile that makes small children cry and the older ones run for their lives.
From the stands, the echo of applause reaches your ears but you don't quite believe it yet, your eyes glued to the score, your heart hammering inside your chest and Miyake's voice repeating like a mantra: we won, we won, I can't believe we won.
"We have to line up," Tsukishima-senpai says but his voice sounds hoarse and his eyes shine, and are those tears rolling down Yamaguchi-senpai's face? It doesn't look like he either notices or cares.
Nakahara grabs your arm and you drag Miyake, who is still bouncing on the spot, and somehow you get to the line even though your feet seem to be stepping on cotton and your head is spinning.
You've never been drunk but it wouldn't surprise you if it felt like this.
Hinata-senpai and Kageyama-senpai don't pay any mind to the coach's yelling. The former has tilted up his head to look into his eyes and, from the look on Kageyama-senpai's face, it's as though nothing else existed for him apart from the captain's hazel eyes. Despite the fever that courses through your entire body, you feel somewhat uncomfortable at the sight, as though you were intruding where you're not welcome. Tsukishima-senpai snorts and, in two strides, he closes the distance to smack them both on the back of their heads.
"Not in front of the TV cameras, will you? Now go line up and Hinata, try to fake some composure, you're the captain after all."
Afterwards, there will be many hugs with the rest of the team, with those members of your family who managed to make it to Tokyo; and Takeda-sensei announces that you'll all go out for dinner to celebrate; and the whole time you feel like this is a dream you're going to wake up from soon, to find yourself back in your bed in Miyagi.
At some point, you find yourself embraced by your teammates, singing loudly not knowing what, and for once, without a care in the world. Even Yamaguchi-senpai is singing at the top of his voice and Tsukishima-senpai, instead of telling you all to shut up, just laughs at you, or maybe that's his way of expressing joy, who knows. Not even Takeda-sensei makes much of an effort to quiet you, and Ukai-san shouts more than all of you put together. It's a miracle you don't get kicked out.
If at some point everyone loses sight of the captain and Kageyama-senpai, no one will ever comment on it.