Chapter Text
Hinata swung himself onto the branch and looked out, a hand shading his eyes as he squinted into the sunset. “It’s really pretty up here, you know.”
“I have the ball,” Kageyama said. “You can come down now.”
With his teeth sinking into his bottom lip, Hinata tucked his feet under him and stood up. He steadied himself against the tree’s trunk with one hand and held on to a branch above his head with the other. “But you can see the sun going behind the mountains and it’s cloudy today so everything looks like a berry smoothie.”
“What?”
“Smoothie!” Hinata yelled, and Kageyama winced.
“I heard you! Come on, you said you wanted to practice outside—”
“I love spring!” Hinata yelled. “And smoothie-colored sunsets!”
“Stop shouting!”
“Make me!” Hinata said and continued peering around. He looked like a pirate, staring at the horizon with wonder. A very small, ginger pirate in sweatpants and a sweatshirt; just because it was spring didn’t mean it was warm yet.
Kageyama tossed the volleyball that he had retrieved from the tree from one hand to the other. “Just because you’re short doesn’t mean you have to get so weird when you have the chance to be tall.”
Hinata glared down at him. “Just because you’re tall all the time doesn’t mean you have to get so— You don’t have to be— You’re a jerk! Jerkface!” He raised his middle finger and stuck his tongue out.
“You need to stop hanging out with Tanaka if he’s going to teach you things like that,” Kageyama snapped. He immediately felt like a prudish idiot but he kept his glare going and tried to ignore the fact that he’d just told Hinata off for making a rude gesture. They were peers, Kageyama wasn’t his goddamn mother.
Hinata made a fist instead of the bird. “Tanaka’s cool and you suck!”
Kageyama snorted. “You want to be like Tanaka? The guy who’s trying to learn guitar to impress girls? The guy who slept through all of his classes yesterday because he stayed up trying to write love poems that he made Suga double-check for both emotion and grammar? That’s who you want to emulate?”
“Your words are dumb!”
“You’re dumb!”
Hinata tried to flip him off with both hands but wobbled and had to steady himself onto the branches above his head. “Woah! Shut up, I don’t want to fall!”
“Yeah, but no way you’d fall,” Kageyama said sarcastically. “You’re one of the big crows, just like Tanaka-senpai, and you’d just fly off.”
A breeze blew up and mussed Hinata’s already disheveled hair. He really did look like some kind of bird, perched in the tree with his sharp little nose and ruffled ginger catastrophe of a haircut, his face pinched and pissed off. “Maybe I would!”
“Sure, test it,” Kageyama said. “I dare you.” He turned away. He tossed the ball for himself (correcting for wind speed, or course, so he wouldn’t have to reach for it and look like even more of an idiot). Then he heard a thud. Then he heard Hinata start screaming.
The volleyball hit the grass and gently rolled a ways away, into the bushes around the football field. No one was there to catch it.
Kageyama sat up straight in the chair in the emergency room when Hinata’s mother and sister busted through the automatic doors, immediately recognizable by their red hair.
“Hello!” he said to Hinata’s mother. His voice was too loud but the words were out and he glared instead of taking them back. Then he remembered that technically, he’d severely injured her son. He tried to take back the glare and look chagrined, but even though he knew what the word meant, he wasn’t entirely positive that he had the expression right.
She wasn’t even looking at him. She’d gone directly to the front desk. “Sorry, someone called and said my son was here? Hinata Shoyou?”
The nurse nodded as she looked through her list. “Yes, he’s waiting for the doctor at the moment, it looks like. You can wait here for a moment and I’ll let them know you’ve arrived. You can go back to see him then. He’s doing fine but you should probably talk to him before he goes in.” She looked up and her eyes narrowed as she locked on to Kageyama. He swallowed hard as she pointed at him. “There’s the kid who came in with him.”
Ms. Hinata and her daughter both looked back at him. Actually, everyone had been looking at him for a while now, ever since he had yelled hello. Kageyama focused on the floor. It was cold in the waiting room. He’d given up his sweatshirt when Hinata went into shock and now he wished he had it. But that was probably bad, because treatment for shock was more important than being comfortable in waiting rooms. Kageyama rubbed his hands together to keep them warm and tried not to wince when he heard Ms. Hinata’s shoes click and her daughter’s sneakers squeak on the linoleum as they came towards him.
“Hello?” she said. “You go to school with Shoyou, don’t you? You’re on his team in volleyball.”
“Yes,” Kageyama said. This time, his voice was too quiet, so he cleared his throat and tried again. “Yes, we’re both first-years and we joined Karasuno’s volleyball team at the same time.”
“What’s your name?” she said. She was smiling at him. He’d forgotten to introduce himself.
“Kageyama. Tobio.”
“What happened, Kageyama?’
Kageyama aimed his glare at the floor and said, “Hinata jumped out of a tree because I dared him to and he broke his left arm and sprained his ankle and went into shock but the ambulance was fast so we made it here very quickly and he’s fine now except for the break and the sprain but they won’t let me in because I told them what happened and they think I did it on purpose but I didn’t. I promise.”
A fat little hand slammed into the area just below his kneecap. Kageyama jerked and yelped at the pain, then swatted away the next attack from what looked like a rounder, much smaller version of Hinata in a pink dress that clashed horribly with the ginger hair. Hinata’s little sister was glaring at him as hard as Hinata usually did.
“Jerk!” she shouted.
“Natsu!” Ms. Hinata said, and scooped her daughter up. She wasn’t glaring when she looked at Kageyama. She was rolling her eyes. “Always trouble. I’m surprised that they haven’t given Hinata some kind of award at this point. Most Injured Player, maybe. That boy.” She sighed. “Thank you for being there, Kageyama.” Her eyes sharpened when she looked back at him, and he twitched. “Don’t mess with him again, though, got it?”
He nodded furiously.
She patted him on the shoulder, smile back in place. “Good. And I expect you to be the one helping him out at school, okay? He’ll try to do everything one-handed and then he’ll lose all his books or break another bone or something, and I can’t afford more medical bills like these for a while.” She sighed again. “All right, I’ll go see the damage.”
She stood up and Kageyama stood up with her, unsure of what to do. A nurse was holding the double doors open and checking the time impatiently on his watch. Kageyama decided bowing was a good idea. A heartfelt apology would just take too much time.
“Kageyama?” she said.
“Yes?” he said, his head still down.
“How long have you been here? Waiting, I mean.”
He darted a look at the clock. “An hour and thirty-eight minutes.”
“I don’t know how long this will take,” she said. “You should go home, okay? Your parents are probably worried. Have you called them?”
“Um, no.”
“You should try and get a ride. It’s dark out. Do you live far?”
Kageyama slowly straightened up. “A mile or two.”
“All right, well you get yourself home safely,” Ms. Hinata said. “I’ll see you later, and I’m sure Shoyou will tell you at school how all of this goes.” She nodded at him and turned away, following the nurse. Over her shoulder, Natsu continued to glare at Kageyama.
He stood around for a moment more, trying to think of something else he could do. There wasn’t a thing he could come up with, though, so he left.
Hinata was at school the next day. In fact, he was at volleyball practice that morning, in a cast that was white and clean and covered him from palm to mid-forearm. He was negotiating a crutch under his good arm, too, with limited success. Suga hovered beside him, gently righting him whenever he teetered too far in one direction or the other. Kageyama joined the cluster around Hinata at the beginning of practice but stayed in the back and stayed silent. He didn’t really know what to say, frankly. There wasn’t a lot he could think of except admitting that he had played a part in this.
“I tried to fly!” Hinata said before anyone could ask. “It was a super nice sunset and the wind went by like ‘Shhhhhaaah’ and I felt pretty light, you know?”
“You are pretty light,” Tsukishima said, “since you’re about three feet tall.”
Tanaka bopped Tsukishima on the back of the head and said, “And then what happened?”
“I jumped!” Hinata said. “And I didn't fly, I fell. And then I went to the hospital. And I can’t practice for the rest of the season because I broke my wrist—” he waved his left hand around as proof— “and sprained my ankle—” Suga caught him as he tried to waggle his leg and overbalanced— “so I have to just sit on the bench. But I can cheer you on!”
“Well, we don’t have any games coming up before next season starts,” Daichi said. He looked around, his gaze lingering on the third years, who should probably have been studying or working on their college plans. “We’re mostly just here to stay in peak physical condition… I don’t think you have to worry too much about missing out on volleyball glory. We’ll miss your spikes, of course, but the team can make do until you’re cleared to play.”
“Awesome!” Hinata said. “I might have to miss early practices though. My mom has to drop me off before she goes to work since I can’t ride my bike anymore.”
“What time are you dropped off?” Suga asked, pushing Hinata back to center as he started falling to the left.
“Oh, just before eight. Mom works in the town so it’s not too far out of her way to bring me, but she doesn’t go early. She brought me today because I asked her to and she’s still kind of worried about me, but it’s not going to happen again.” Hinata tried to shrug and Suga had to push him back upright.
“Well, we’ll miss your enthusiasm,” Daichi said. “I suppose we’ll just have to ask Tanaka and Noya to pick up the slack in team spirit while you’re out.”
Everyone else was laughing and asking if they could sign Hinata’s cast (except Tsukishima, who fidgeted with his glasses and looked bored). Kageyama hung back and avoided looking at Hinata in case Hinata saw him.
Hinata hadn’t mentioned that Kageyama was even there.
He also hadn’t brought back Kageyama’s volleyball sweatshirt.
During practice, Kageyama tossed for other people and received serves and spiked balls and ran laps. He passed Hinata often, sitting on the sidelines. He was still working on what to say to Hinata, though, so he stayed quiet and kept his head down. It worked up until he was putting on his bag and slipping on his street shoes to walk to the school building.
“Hey, Kageyama!” Hinata called. He was hauling himself over like some kind of wind-up toy in overdrive, his bad foot nearly touching down before his momentum would launch him forward again. Suga hovered in the background with a nervous smile and a watchful look in his eyes.
“Yes?” Kageyama said.
“Mom said she put you in charge of me,” Hinata said, pulling up next to him. The crutch forced his shoulder up next to his ear. It was on the lowest setting and yet it was still to big for him. His bag was in the way, too, sliding around to tangle with his legs when he tried to get moving fast. Because it was Hinata, he was probably always trying to go fast.
“Yes,” Kageyama said. “She said that. I don’t know what she meant by it, though. Do you need help with something?”
Hinata glared. “No! I’m fine!”
“She said you’d say that.”
“Yeah! Well—”
“Why even bring it up if you don’t actually want help?”
Hinata looked away. “I dunno.”
They stood there for a moment, Kageyama thinking carefully of what he should do. He wasn’t going to carry his classmate around, that was for sure. Perhaps he could pick up homework for him? Carry his lunch? Actually, carrying his school bag would be a good start. Kageyama reached over and steadied Hinata’s crutch, held him still as he squawked, and tugged the strap over his head. He draped it over his own head, let go of Hinata, and started walking.
“Your class is on the second floor, right next to mine. We should go quickly. It’ll take you a while to navigate the stairs.”
“You— Why— I don’t need— Wait up! Hey! Kageyama, not so fast!”
Kageyama felt a slow smirk beginning at the corners of his mouth. He swallowed it before Hinata caught up to him, and argued with him about how much help Hinata needed throughout the day. When they traded their shoes out for indoor slip-ons, Kageyama managed to get Hinata to agree that he could put the left shoe on for him, since he couldn’t step into it on a sprained ankle and couldn’t pull it on with a broken wrist. Kageyama almost got kicked in the head trying to get the shoe on while Hinata wailed that he was ticklish and also that his ankle hurt every time he waved his leg around.
“Stop moving, moron!” Kageyama finally snapped. “I can put your shoe on if you just stop trying to hit me! Sit still!”
“You’re a jerk,” Hinata said. “I’m injured and you’re yelling at me and I feel like—”
“There.” Kageyama stood up. “It’s on. Let’s go to class.”
“Wait, really?” Hinata looked down at his foot like he couldn’t believe it existed.
Kageyama glared down at him. “Yes. Stand up. We’ll be late.”
“I’m an invalid, they’ll forgive me,” Hinata grumbled as he dragged himself up on his crutch. “You’re gonna be in trouble though because Tanaka says you have resting bitchface and the teachers—”
“He says what?” Kageyama snarled.
“Nothing! Uh, you must have misheard!”
Kageyama rubbed his eyes and sighed. A headache was brewing. He’d need a juice box before, during, and after lunch at this rate.
“Tanaka. You said I have resting bitchface,” Kageyama said the next morning as the team changed for practice in the locker room.
Tanaka looked up from where he was carefully doodling hearts on his new notebook, eyebrows drawn in confusion. “Yeah, you do.”
“Is that supposed to be an insult?”
“What? No way!” Tanaka stood up fast and rubbed his shaved head nervously. “Shit, I’m sorry. It’s just a fact. It sounds mean when you say it though, I can see why you’d be pissed. I’m sorry.”
“Insulting the first years?” Daichi said from the other side of the room.
“I’m apologizing!” Tanaka wailed. “I didn’t mean it like that, I swear! Oh man, Kageyama, I’m so friggin sorry.”
“What does it mean?” Kageyama said. He heard Daichi snort from where he was still lacing up his shoes.
Tanaka blinked. “Uh. It means your neutral expression looks kinda pissed all the time.”
“Oh.” Kageyama nodded thoughtfully. He hiked his sweatpants up over his shorts and started lacing up his own sneakers.
“Are… Are you still mad?”
“No. I just didn’t know what it meant.”
Daichi slapped Tanaka on the back. “You got off easy. Don’t be saying unkind things about your teammates though, got it?”
“And stop teaching Hinata to swear,” Kageyama added. “And stop teaching him rude hand gestures.”
Tanaka swallowed hard under Daichi’s suddenly frozen expression. “Oh, jeez.”
Kageyama straightened up, adjusted his binder so he could breathe more freely, pulled on his shirt (Hinata hadn’t brought up the sweatshirt and Kageyama was starting to worry that it had been lost at the hospital) and left the locker room for a quick jog around campus before they started drills. He heard Daichi’s dark, furious voice start in on Tanaka before the locker room doors shut and he couldn’t suppress a small grin.