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i. one hundred and thirty ninth
Kageyama sat glowering at his lunchbox, watching Hinata texting that smartass pudding head setter from Nekoma.
“Hey, Bakageyamaaa,” he heard, “don’t be such a gremlin,”
When he looked up, he found that Hinata had put his phone away and had just been looking at Kageyama have a silent fit for god knew how long. His cheeks tinged warmly in embarrassment.
“Don’t talk to that guy,” he said uselessly, knowing as much as Hinata that they were empty words that would be ignored.
“Huh? Why not? He’s my friend, Baaakageyama, that’s not nice,” Hinata grinned up at him, feigning innocence like the little shit he was.
“Because,” Kageyama went back to glaring into his lunch, “you should just date me instead.” He wasn’t in the mood for feeling jealous.
“There we go,” Hinata sang, “back to normal,”
And Kageyama knew that unrequited love was unrequited love, but still. It stung just a little.
ii. two hundred and fifty eighth
“Hinata!”
His feet pounded on the gym floor, shoes squeaking noisily. He ignored the sounds, coming to an awkward holt in front of his friend, who sat crouched right in front of the volleyball net. Suga came rushing towards them, followed by Tanaka and Daichi, but Kageyama didn’t care; he’d always be there before anyone else for Hinata.
“Are you okay? What happened? Can you stand?” He hurriedly asked, not letting anyone else get a word in. Several more people had crowed around Hinata now, Shimizu behind with with a fresh hand towel and water bottle, calling to Yachi to see if she could find the emergency kit.
“Yeah...” Hinata winced as he tried to get up, “sorry, my leg just cramped mid-jump, that’s all,”
But it didn’t look like a ‘that’s all’ kind of situation.
“Need me to carry you?” Kageyama offered without hesitation.
Hinata, on the other hand, froze up for a split second before giving him grateful eyes. “Actually, maybe, if you don’t mind...”
“Of course not,” Kageyama said simply, bending to lift Hinata into his arms and transport him to the bench, ignoring that Asahi or Daichi, who both had varying degrees of noticeably more muscle mass, probably would be better suited for it.
“Don’t let yourself get hurt, stupid,” Kageyama whispered, knowing that Hinata understood it to mean, I’m worried about you, be careful.
“I like you too much for you to get yourself killed like this,” Kageyama warned, feelings his ears get warmer.
“Nah, you only need me to spike your tosses,” Hinata laughed it off, patting his shoulder good-naturedly as Kageyama set him down safely on the bench.
Turned out it was luckily just a light sprain.
iii. three hundred and seventy seventh
It was in between classes, merely a fleeting pause in the hallway.
Kageyama punched in the number of Hinata’s favourite drink from the vending machine after slotting a coin in before he could be stopped.
“Hinata.”
Kageyama was standing right behind him, crowding him face first against the cold glass of the vending machine. He bent to pick up the drink deliberately slowly, watching the flush rising on Hinata’s neck. He knew it meant nothing; their physical closeness. But if Hinata could tease him, he was allowed to tease back.
“Here.”
“Th-Thanks,” Hinata said, and Kageyama felt pleased, because it was not that often that he got Hinata flustered like this. It was usually the other way around.
“Hinata,” Kageyama pressed again, not backing away from him, “I like you.”
“I know,” Hinata shifted in front of him, rather uneasily.
“Date me.”
His breath ghosted the top of Hinata’s head, and he was met with a silence that wasn’t unfamiliar.
“Why won’t you say yes?” Kageyama asked to drown out the uncomfortable quietness.
Hinata still didn’t reply, slipping out from under Kageyama’s body without a word, leaving him clutching the icy drink too tightly.
He started to confess less frequently, after that.
iv. four hundred and twentieth
“Kageyama, look.”
He followed Hinata’s gaze, to where he was looking at a radiant blue butterfly, dancing in the sunlight with an orange butterfly, wings aflutter and almost touching, but never quite.
“They’re pretty,” Kageyama said, eyes locked on them in a trance for several seconds.
“I know, right?”
When Hinata spoke, Kageyama automatically looked away from the butterflies and at him.
“They kind of remind me of us,” Hinata added. “Like, the colours.”
Oh. A flush dusted Kageyama’s cheeks. It sounded weirdly intimate, the way Hinata had put it, though he knew it probably wasn’t because Hinata had started to like him out of the blue. So instead he said, “I guess so.”
It was weird, so weird, the way Hinata smiled as if Kageyama meant something to him, but also too nice. It was too nice for his heart to get used to, because it’d only be worse once Hinata rejected him again. But it was fine, he was fine, he forced himself to be fine. (And anyways...he’d never outright said no, so. That had to count for something, didn’t it? No?)
“We should head back now,” Kageyama said after a minute of watching Hinata watch the butterflies flit about each other in that same sunlit space.
“Oh, right,” Hinata said absently, “fine, let’s go,”
Kageyama rolled his eyes affectionately. This guy was too distracted by tiny little things.
“Hinata, go out with me,” he said out of habit on their walk back home. “I like you.”
He spoke without hesitation. He said variations of the same thing every time, and he’d had a lot of practice.
Hinata only swivelled to the side and gave him a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. Kageyama silently wondered what was wrong.
“Buy me a pork bun and we’ll see,” he joked; the closest Kageyama had gotten to an answer.
But he’d experienced this before a multitude of times, and while he wasn’t about to get his hopes up and fall for this idiot’s bullshit, it still wouldn’t stop him from being the bigger idiot and buying the bun regardless.
v. four hundred and eighty second
They had just lost the match, and Kageyama wasn’t sure if he should say it. He sometimes wondered if it annoyed Hinata; his incessant confessing, but the other boy hadn’t given him any reasons to think so in a while. Still, he wished he knew if he was wasting his time or not. He wished he knew if Hinata would ever say ‘yes’, because if there was at least a possibility, Kageyama would keep confessing every day. But he didn’t know, so.
Kageyama waited until they were halfway back to Karasuno. He’d been watching Hinata stare listlessly out the window for about forty minutes now, and he just wanted to do something to make him feel better, even if it was only reassurance of what they both knew.
“Hinata...” he started to say.
“I know,” Hinata mumbled, cutting him off. “Just...don’t say it, right now. Sorry.”
Kageyama went quiet again. Hinata had never told him this before. Maybe he’d been right to think that he was annoying Hinata. Maybe he really should give it up. Maybe he’d gotten so invested into the idea that if he kept trying hard enough to win him over, Hinata would eventually accept. But...it had been four hundred and eighty two confessions since he realised his feelings, and Hinata hadn’t even looked pleased to hear them one single time.
It was probably hopeless, Kageyama told himself. And maybe he’d always known it somewhere in the back of his mind, that he should stop, he should try and get over it, and god damn it, he was not helping himself in the long run. But loving (yes, loving, as if he hadn’t made things bad enough for himself) Hinata was just too...too irresistible, too addictive, too instinctual. Kageyama had found his subconscious to not care if his was an unrequited love, as long as he could keep seeing Hinata every day. But Kageyama’s conscious did, because honestly? It hurt. It hurt him a lot, sometimes, when Hinata wasn’t looking, when he didn’t realise Kageyama was getting so down. He’d always been happy just to tell Hinata he liked him, and spend time with him, so it was understandable, because Kageyama truly was happy doing that.
And he kind of hated himself for being greedy, for wanting something Hinata so clearly didn’t, and by the looks of it, would never.
Both boys sat facing away from each other, each looking like they were about to cry from frustration.
Kageyama stopped confessing to Hinata, then. And if his teammates noticed, they tactfully said nothing. And if Hinata noticed, it did not show.
+1: four hundred and eighty third
It was nearing spring, the next time he spoke to Hinata.
Since losing the game, they’d practiced wordlessly, doing drills in the gym, sets and spikes and jumping and tossing, but they hardly spoke since Hinata told him not to say it. Kageyama wasn’t exactly sure of what he was doing, but Hinata’s words had made him depressed. He could hardly even remember the feeling that had carried his ambition to never give up on him, but it felt like that’s what he was doing, at this moment. He was probably giving up his hopeless love. And it was probably for the best.
But then, mere weeks later, spring came. He only remembered it because that was the exact day Hinata spoke to him; as the cherry blossoms first started blooming. They hadn’t walked back home from school together in a while. It was too awkward. All they really did was train and practice for volleyball, with some occasional homework thrown in, but lately they’d been doing it all separately. It had been pretty lonely, Kageyama had to admit, and he wondered if he should have just said something the next day. Maybe then it wouldn’t have ended up like this. But then, Hinata probably wouldn’t have spoken to him on the first day of spring.
He waited for Kageyama to finish changing instead of going ahead or straying behind like one of them usually did, to avoid the other. Kageyama observed this in silence, and Hinata didn’t contribute anything to it. So they walked, side by side, trying not to look at each other (or trying not to be caught looking). Kageyama wanted to badly to be over Hinata. But he knew he wasn’t, that much was obvious. After all, an infatuation that he’d invested four hundred and eighty two separate confessions into didn’t go away that easily.
Hinata spoke. “So.”
Kageyama said nothing in return, only quirking an eyebrow at him. Before, he would have been so eager to know what Hinata had to say, to see if the words coming out of his lips would finally be a ‘yes’. But now he was resigned. Why should it go right, when it had gone so wrong four hundred and eighty two times?
“Uhm,” Hinata cleared his throat awkwardly at Kageyama’s quiet, and then, something in him—maybe his resolve, maybe his patience, Kageyama noted at the back of his mind, because despite everything he still paid too much attention—seemed to break.
“I’m sorry,” he was saying, and Kageyama hadn’t really been expecting that, even though some kind of apology or something is probably very normal after whatever it was that had happened between them in the last several weeks, but before Kageyama could really process this, Hinata went on, “this was all my fault. No, seriously, if you want to blame someone, absolutely go ahead and blame me. I’m probably even more of an idiot than everyone thinks I am as it is,” and he was flushing, and Kageyama didn’t know why.
“What are you talking about?” He asked.
“Listen, I know I had no right to put you through that—“ Hinata says, and a weird feeling tightens in his chest, “but I just...I wanted that win so badly. I wanted it to be able to prove to myself that I was, like, worth your time. A-and stuff,” he stammered.
Kageyama stared. Of course, he knew what match Hinata was talking about, but...”Worth my time how?”
He was feeling a different sort of tightness in his chest now, a fuzzy nervousness. He forced himself to squash it down; after all, Hinata never said yes.
“It was just a stupid pride thing,” Hinata was speaking, with Kageyama only half hearing him, “you were, I mean, you are such a great setter, you’re so good, I felt like if I said yes I wouldn’t be...like I wouldn’t be right standing next to you. And it’s probably really stupid, hurting you like that, but I really really wanted to be enough—“
“Wait, stop,” Kageyama interrupted, “so what you’re saying is...?”
He couldn’t really dare to believe it, but the words coming out of Hinata’s mouth couldn’t mean anything different.
“I’m saying...” Hinata took a breath, “that I like you, so,”
He was even less prepared for what Hinata did next, but there he was, coming to a halt in front of Kageyama and bowing, and saying, “Please go out with me, Kageyama, even though I messed things up!”
He should probably be mad right now. He should be pissed off to say the least at Hinata for rejecting him (or at least ignoring him; Kageyama realised with an odd fuzzy pang why Hinata had never outright said no) four hundred and eighty two times, but all he could do was stare in shock. After spending around a month searing it into his brain that no, he does not like you like that, it was jarring to hear Hinata contradict his inner monologue.
He could see Hinata peeking up nervously, panicking, and saying, “Wah, Kageyama, I’m so sorry, I can’t believe myself, I get it if you hate me for acting like I didn’t like you when I did, because I do, I really really like you...” a blush bloomed on his cheeks, “...and you never even gave up on me, until I said something mean to you and we sort of had a fight, except without speaking....”
He was rambling; Kageyama needed to stop him, he needed to brush off that sakura petal stuck to his jacket, wait no.
“Hinata. Just. Shut up. I do hate you right now, but...not really. I couldn’t hate you, really.”
Hinata gave him a hopeful little look, and Kageyama’s heart melted despite itself.
“So is that a yes?” He asked, licking his lips.
“Uh,” Kageyama said dumbly, forgetting how to think.
“A yes to going out,” Hinata quickly elaborated.
“Oh, uh, yeah,” Kageyama found himself hurriedly saying before he could stop himself and let Hinata stew a little longer. But he supposed it was worth it, with the way Hinata threw himself at him, squeaking about how he’d forgiven a dumbass jerk like him.
“You know, even though I hate you right now, it’s not that stupid,” Kageyama allowed softly.
“It isn’t?” Hinata widened just eyes.
“Well, all I’m saying is that I get it. And you’re definitely worth my time,” Kageyama added on as a last minute thought, flushing when he realised he was supposed to be acting mad.
But then again, that was worth it too, seeing Hinata’s smile right before Kageyama kissed him for the first time.
“I can’t believe you confessed to me four hundred and eighty two times,” Hinata snickered afterwards. They were still standing by the road.
Maybe Kageyama would take that back. Maybe it wasn’t worth it.
“Idiot, you were counting,” he said, trying to keep his composure.
“Yeah well, of course I was! I had a massive crush on you,” Hinata pouted.
Instead of being annoyed at everything they’d missed out on, Kageyama thought that if him making a fool out of himself for almost a full year ended in this, he would say without shame that it was worth it.