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Hinata Shouyou in high school is untapped potential, boundless energy, and short-sightedness. He's loud, both in volume and in aura — 'I'm here, I'm here! Look at me, see me!' — and he smiles at the smallest acts of kindness. People like him, either because he's a good friend or a good opponent, and his unbridled honesty has a tendency to draw people into his orbit.
Kiyoomi knows very little of this thanks to firsthand experience. Whether they met him just once or were a close friend, he hears about Hinata Shouyou often once he helps prove that Karasuno can still fly, and almost always fondly.
What he does know for himself is that Hinata gets a fever and gets benched during nationals, which tells Kiyoomi he's an athlete that doesn't respect his body, disregards his health like an amateur, and needs to learn some responsibility.
Another thing he knows firsthand is that Hinata's smile is warm and makes Kiyoomi's insides heat gently in response, like curling up in front of a fire on a cold day with a good book, even if he only sees the smile while watching Karasuno game tapes.
The moments that he learns these facts are usually small and fleeting — someone mentions a Hinata factoid to him or around him, Kiyoomi feels interest stir briefly in him, resents it, and then he moves on. Hinata doesn't occupy his thoughts constantly or drive him to distraction. He's just a passing curiosity, nothing more and nothing less.
Once or twice, in the four years between graduating in 2014 and now, Kiyoomi wonders if Hinata got better and learned to harness his athletic prowess, but that's it. Professional curiosity and a strange reaction to a smile are all that Kiyoomi can offer up if you ask him what he thinks about Hinata Shouyou.
And then 2018 comes, and the Jackals hold trials.
Bokuto screams excitedly, Miya looks like he's going to faint. Inunaki grins predatorily at the sight of a five-foot-eight man rising above blocks he shouldn't be able to brush, never mind soar over and blow through as if they don't exist. Meian has the look of an explorer finally finding the rare gem they've spent their life searching for.
Kiyoomi knows, as he watches Hinata move around the court like gravity and time themselves know better than to fuck with him, that he's got a new teammate.
The last room in the four-bedroom dorm that Kiyoomi occupies with Bokuto and Miya becomes Hinata's bedroom within a week.
After deciding to help bring Hinata's things in if only because Kiyoomi was raised with manners, he comes outside to where a short guy with dark hair and golden catlike eyes is leaning against a sleek black car disinterestedly.
Kiyoomi bows as Miya hefts a box from the trunk with a grunt. He introduces himself, and the stranger assesses him blatantly, not trying to hide the roving of his eyes.
"Kozume Kenma," he replies eventually, bowing lazily. "So. You're one of Shouyou's new teammates?"
Filing the familiarity away for later — the given name, the dropped honorific — Kiyoomi nods. "I am, Kozume-san."
"Well, alright. If you're wanting to help, you can take that box there," he says as he nods to his left. "It's just his yoga things, nothing too heavy. Mat, straps, etcetera."
Mid-lift, Kiyoomi does a double take. "Yoga?"
Kozume inclines his head and Kiyoomi wonders how someone so sedate and low-energy ever got close enough to Hinata to be as familiar as they seem to be.
"Shouyou takes the care of his body extremely seriously, and yoga is very good for him."
Kiyoomi absorbs this. Wonders if he's been doing yoga since fainting at nationals or if he picked it up in Brazil. Notes that it's a very good indicator that he won't be a liability to the team. Considers whether it might be prudent for him to take up the same habit since his hips have a tendency to get tight.
"Kenma!" Hinata's bright voice calls, snapping Kiyoomi from his thoughts. As he turns, he sees his new teammate bouncing towards them, smiling wide. "Thank you so much for driving my stuff over! And Sakusa-san, thank you for helping bring it in," he adds when his large hazel eyes slide to land on Kiyoomi, still holding the yoga box.
"It's no problem," Kiyoomi mutters as he avoids staring at that damn smile that still makes him feel warm inside.
"Well, I'm thanking you anyway," Hinata concludes as he yanks the last box out of the car and turns to Kozume. "I'll call you later, Kenma. Thanks again," he says as he flashes a charming smile in Kozume's direction.
"Sure, Shouyou. Stay interesting," Kozume offers as he slips into the driver's seat. Hinata huffs but smiles fondly, then turns to Kiyoomi and jerks his head in the direction of the door.
"Shall we?"
Kiyoomi shrugs and starts to move. "Stay interesting?" He asks, because it's an unusual thing to say to a person — and because maybe, just maybe, he's a little curious about Hinata now that he's seeing the man has far more depths and sides than teenage Kiyoomi could have considered.
"Well, Kenma's always said that he'll drop anyone from his life if they get boring, so he likes to give me a reminder not to let it happen," Hinata explains. Despite himself, despite the inherent sentimentality of it and the fact he doesn't really know Hinata, Kiyoomi finds himself thinking that Hinata's probably incapable of not being at least a little interesting.
He doesn't say it out loud, though. Instead, he jostles the box in his hands and says, "So, yoga?"
Hinata nods enthusiastically, and his hair ruffles softly with the movement. Kiyoomi's eyes zero in on it, the bright colour and the soft curls, but before he can examine his sudden fascination with Hinata's hair, his new teammate speaks up.
"Well, it's just all-around good for you! Flexibility, muscle strength and tone, improved respiration and circulation, the list goes on. Honestly, I swear I'm partially only as good as I am on the court because of yoga."
Kiyoomi hums. It's interesting to hear how health-conscious adult Hinata is compared to his lack of regard for it when he was a teenager, in a good way. Someone so dedicated to physical conditioning outside of mandatory training is someone with a work ethic that Kiyoomi can respect, at least.
It's better than the way Miya is a lazy bastard that sleeps until noon on his off days and Bokuto inhales fried foods as if they're going to disappear before he can eat them.
"If you want, I can teach you the basics sometime," Hinata offers as they reach the dormitory. When Kiyoomi hesitates, he says very seriously, "I wouldn't have to touch you to do it."
Kiyoomi blinks. Looks down at the box and sees the words 'yoga and exercise' in neat kanji. Looks back at Hinata, who doesn't remotely seem to be judging him, just trying to reassure him. Like he cares, like Kiyoomi isn't weird to him.
"Sure," he says, telling himself it's for the health benefits and nothing more. "Sure, I'd like that."
Three days after Hinata moves in, Kiyoomi wakes a little earlier than his typical five-thirty a.m. It's just after five, and he figures he might as well get up and see the sunrise while he does his pre-jog stretches and makes his protein shake.
He drags himself into one of the two bathrooms their dorm contains and follows his usual hygiene routine — brushes and flosses his teeth, washes his face before using toner end moisturiser, uses a serum to take the frizz out of his curls — before dressing in some casual athletic wear and heading into the common area.
And then there he is. Sitting in front of the couch, legs crossed and hands resting on his knees, Hinata's eyes are closed and his chest rises and falls slowly as he… Well, Kiyoomi isn't sure what he's doing.
Awkwardly, Kiyoomi clears his throat. Hinata cracks a singular eye open.
"What are you, ah, doing?" He gestures vaguely at Hinata's seated form. Hinata's lips quirk into a barely-there smile.
"Meditating," he replies quietly. "It's good for my focus."
Kiyoomi feels his eyes widen slightly, but Hinata's eye has already closed back over, so he doesn't see the blatant surprise written all over Kiyoomi's face. It's just strange to think about all that wild, chaotic energy being harnessed and tamped down into something manageable and malleable, even with the proof of it right in front of him.
"I'll leave you to it, then," he whispers as he lightens his steps to pass through the room quietly. Hinata nods, a soft bob of his head, but otherwise remains silent.
As he puts protein powder into the blender along with some fresh berries and Greek yoghurt, Kiyoomi contemplates the scene in the common room. Based on Hinata's high school reputation, meditation certainly isn't a hobby Kiyoomi would have imagined him picking up, but he has, and — and maybe Kiyoomi needs to learn that whatever he thinks he knows about Hinata is nothing but a whisper of an echo of a boy that used to exist but was pushed aside in favour of the man he's coming to tentatively respect.
On Tuesday, Hinata partners with Kiyoomi for warm-up stretches. He smells clean up close, like detergent and wind with a hint of something fruity, and Kiyoomi likes it. He likes clean things, and he likes that Hinata smells like one, fresh and comforting.
Hinata's fingers are calloused, as are his palms, but the rest of him is soft where their skin meets. After a little while, he realises Hinata is deliberately touching him over his clothes where possible, and the strangest urge to tell him that he doesn't have to do it grips Kiyoomi.
Hinata's hands don't feel dirty, don't make Kiyoomi desperate for antibacterial gel and hot water, and he doesn't get it.
Why, when a high-five from Bokuto or a hug from Miya is about as appealing as showering in ice-cold water in winter, does Kiyoomi find himself wanting to welcome more of Hinata's touch?
He can't answer his own question, and it annoys him until Hinata distracts him with a perfect butterfly stretch. Then he's just left wondering if that flexibility is from yoga or if it's maybe natural.
On Wednesday they have an off day, and Hinata asks if Kiyoomi is free for yoga. He certainly doesn't have any other plans, so he says yes.
Bokuto is too busy rambling about seeing Akaashi to care what Hinata and Kiyoomi are doing, but Miya is Miya and invites himself along. It's irritating for reasons Kiyoomi doesn't understand.
Once they've shuffled the furniture around a little and Hinata's laid out his spare mats for Kiyoomi and Miya, they begin. There's a playlist of calming tracks playing quietly in the background as Hinata walks them through mountain pose, then child's, then cat/cow and so on.
Studiously ignoring how Hinata looks in tight-fitted leggings, Kiyoomi follows along and gives mental props to Hinata since even the basic poses are more taxing than they look. Miya is far too talkative for it to be as relaxing as Kiyoomi suspects it could if the room were silent, but he finds himself feeling limber and loose once they finish up for the day.
"That was very enlightening," Kiyoomi says politely. "Thank you for taking the time to teach me."
Miya scrunches his nose up and shakes his head. "Ma legs do feel a bit stretchier, but it's borin' just standing around like that. Don't think yoga's for me yanno."
"No one is surprised by that, Miya-san," Kiyoomi replies. Hinata turns around to roll up the mats, and Kiyoomi does not check out his ass while he's bent over.
Unfortunately, Miya catches Kiyoomi's line of sight and grins wolfishly. "Say, Shouyou-kun," he drawls as Kiyoomi questions what on Earth he did to deserve Miya Atsumu in his life because it must have been fucking terrible.
Hinata hums questioningly and Kiyoomi narrows his eyes in warning, which Miya happily ignores as he barrels on with whatever harebrained scheme he's managed to concoct with his two brain cells.
"I just think Omi-kun here really benefited from the yoga and all that, so do ya think ya could keep teaching him until he's confident on his own? Wouldn't want to risk him gettin' an injury after stretchin' wrong, right?"
Kiyoomi is going to make sure all Miya's charging cords get tangled up for the remainder of their days.
"Sure!" Hinata chirps happily. "I'd be glad to!"
Scratch that, Miya's cables are safe. He's not sure why he's so happy about the idea of more yoga sessions with Hinata other than perhaps knowing they'll be very peaceful without Miya around, but he'll take the win even without knowing what makes it one.
On Thursday, nothing particularly exciting happens. Kiyoomi wakes up at five thirty, does his hygiene routine, stretches, and then goes for a jog. By the time he's back, everyone is up and awake, eating breakfast around the kitchen island while Miya and Hinata bicker back and forth about the quick attack they've been steadily working together to improve.
Bokuto greets Kiyoomi and Hinata shoots him a smile and a wave without pausing his discussion, and they all head over to the court to practise, meeting Barnes and Inunaki on their way in. As usual, Meian is already there because he's a good captain like that, and everyone settles into warm-up stretches.
Practice is the same as always, and Kiyoomi feels pleased with the progress he's making on the spin of his serve, and then Tomas suggests going out to an izakaya. Everyone seems particularly excited about it, but then—
"I'll pass," Hinata says as they troop into the locker room to shower and change. Bokuto makes a horrified gasping sound as he tugs his sweaty t-shirt over his head.
"Don't you want to spend time with us, Hinataaa?" He whines pathetically. Hinata snickers and shakes his head as he strips his own shirt off, revealing flexing obliques that Kiyoomi has to force himself to look away from.
"I'll spend time with you when we don't have training the next day, Bokuto-san," Hinata bargains. It makes Kiyoomi's lips twitch into a faint smile behind his mask because it's nice to not be the only one prioritising health and fitness over a couple of cheap beers. He even says so, much to Miya's exasperation.
"It's two drinks, Omi-kun, it won't kill ya!"
"Neither will not having them," Hinata mutters with an eye roll as he wanders off to the showers with Bokuto bouncing around him like a needy puppy. Kiyoomi snorts in amusement and ignores Miya's complaining as they continue to strip out of their damp training gear.
Nothing exciting happens on Thursday, not really. Not if you discount Kiyoomi deciding Hinata's probably his favourite person in the world other than Motoya — and even he only really gets the title by default.
On Friday, Kozume returns, this time coming into the dorm that the four of them share. Bokuto, it turns out, also knows him from high school, and hops around an unimpressed-looking Kozume firing questions at him so rapidly that he's already asked two before he's finished one.
It does, however, reveal that Hinata's best friend — as he's introduced — is Kodzuken. Kiyoomi recognises the name and vaguely recalls what a big deal Kodzuken is, though Miya somehow looks unhappy at the news as Bokuto drags Kozume to one of their couches.
Both Kozume and Hinata look towards Hinata's bedroom door somewhat mournfully, and Kiyoomi knows Hinata said they'd stay in there so they wouldn't disturb everyone else, but he feels almost a little relieved that they're in the common area instead. He doesn't really understand why, though.
He focuses on something he has a better chance of understanding, instead. "Why do you look so pissy about Hinata's guest, Miya?"
Miya frowns harder and Kiyoomi has the sense that he's doing it in an attempt to look less pissy. It, of course, doesn't work. Hinata rolls his eyes and answers for him. "Kenma was a setter in high school."
Kiyoomi smirks at that because setters can be strangely territorial about their favourite spiker, and everyone knows Hinata is Miya's favourite. He almost wants to egg Miya on a bit, point out that Kozume gets first-name-no-honorific privileges, but that would force him to address the fact he feels almost a little jealous about that, so he doesn't. Watching the natural disaster that is a possessive Miya Atsumu try and go up against someone who seems to have thrice his iQ and no insecurity about his place in Hinata's life sounds much better.
It's obvious who's going to lose, and it isn't Kozume.
He’s proven right when Kozume looks Miya dead in the eye, expression calculating, and says, “Shouyou was the reason I was as good as I was, really,” with little to no inflection in his tone.
“If I have to sit through another round of setter wars, I’m playing with your hair,” Hinata says with a sigh, shoving Kenma to sit on the floor in front of the couch before claiming the cushion behind him and pulling the hair tie out of his friend's hair. It’s only then that Kiyoomi notices the very ends of his hair are bleached blond, although it’s real blond, not the brassy yellow Miya settles for.
Hinata sets about combing it with his fingers as Miya and Kozume continue to bicker back and forth, though it’s mostly just Kozume making very targeted, precise shots that seem to be designed to wound Miya’s ego heavily on impact while Miya gets more and more irate as it goes on, leaving Kiyoomi with the freedom to watch Hinata hum to himself as he braids Kozume’s hair like he’s done it hundreds of time before.
Bokuto might be talking to him, but he’s not sure, because he’s busy homing in on how intimate it is, the hair thing, and wondering why it makes him feel envious of Kozume and a little angry like he wants to pull Hinata’s hands away from the other man’s hair. He doesn’t think it’s because Kozume has dirty or greasy-looking hair; on the contrary, it looks very silky-soft and clean, so why, then, does he desperately want Hinata’s hands free of long, dark brown, dip-dyed hair so badly?
It takes Kiyoomi exactly one month following Kozume’s visit to the team dorms to realise what the answers to all of his strange questions regarding Hinata are.
He likes Hinata. To use a phrase he’s absolutely too old for, he like-likes him.
Kiyoomi likes the warmth his smile brings, he likes the way he smells fresh and clean, he likes the undying devotion to volleyball that’s evident in every late practice session Hinata takes. He likes how kind Hinata is, and how devastatingly understanding he is of everyone’s oddities and idiosyncrasies — especially Kiyoomi’s.
When the team wants to go out drinking and they have practice the next day, Hinata and Kiyoomi do very peaceful and calming yoga together in the living room, taking advantage of the lack of interruptions. When they’re dealing with fans and Kiyoomi wants to scream because they want to touch him and have him touch their things so he can sign shirts, Hinata always knows just how to pull the attention onto him for a few blissful seconds so that Kiyoomi can breathe.
Hinata is special, not just because of what he can do on the court but because of what he does off it. In fact, he might almost be more special for those things. Never before has he met someone else who just goes with his need for cleanliness like Hinata does, never questioning, never judging. Even Motoya mocks him for it in a way that’s half affectionate and half irritated.
Nobody else has ever synched up with Kiyoomi the way Hinata does. The way it’s easy to cook with him because he cleans the mess as he goes, the way he likes doing stretches with Hinata because Hinata feels safe, the way it’s easy to look at Hinata and know when he’s going to give in to Miya’s shameless begging of him to socialise and when he isn’t — he just knows Hinata, and Hinata seems to know him.
Hinata knows him when he produces a bottle of hand sanitiser at practice when Kiyoomi’s runs out unexpectedly. Hinata knows him when he kicks Miya in the shin for touching Kiyoomi’s skin with food grease all over his huge setter paws. Hinata knows him when he redirects Bokuto’s endless energy because Kiyoomi’s fucking tired from practising his new serve.
Honestly, it’s almost surprising that it took Kiyoomi a month to realise Hinata wasn’t simply a teammate or a friend, but some kind of unexpected other half he didn’t even know he wanted. Sure, there are parts of Hinata that Kiyoomi doesn’t quite get, like the way he seems able to befriend literally anyone he decides he wants to or the way he thrives under attention from time to time, but he doesn’t need to understand or match every single part of Hinata.
They don’t need to be a perfectly symmetrical set for Kiyoomi to be happy, they just need the right pieces of their souls to line up and the rest will fall into place. He’s pretty sure that’s already what they do, even if they’re missing certain elements that Kiyoomi finds himself unexpectedly interested in like holding hands, falling asleep next to each other, kissing whenever Miya isn’t looking to avoid obnoxious Kansai-ben-infused comments about it.
Oh, God, he thinks as he realises something quite important. If he wants that, if he wants even the potential of any of that being real, he has to — fuck — he has to tell Hinata.
Across the kitchen, Hinata is singing under his breath in Portuguese as he makes tamago kake gohan. His back is to Kiyoomi, and he’s wearing a dri-fit that looks far too good on him, especially with how nice his voice sounds making unfamiliar sounds in a language Kiyoomi doesn’t know.
It’s in that perfect moment that Kiyoomi knows.
He can’t say a fucking thing and risk never seeing Hinata this comfortable around him again.
After the end of the Jackals Vs Adlers, with the whole MSBY team including even Kiyoomi celebrating a victory, following months of those perfect moments with Hinata that Kiyoomi treasures above all else, he hears something he never thought he would.
Kageyama Tobio is someone that Kiyoomi doesn’t despise — and frankly, that’s saying something. He doesn’t like him, not even a little bit, but he doesn’t hate him either because he’s quiet and polite and dedicated to the sport, so when he hears Kageyama basically shriek the word ‘fuck’ unexpectedly — the man really isn’t much of a curser — he immediately spins on his heel and looks for him, thinking he’s going to find a murder scene or a pregnant mistress or something equally dramatic and ridiculous.
Instead, he finds Kageyama pale and staring open-mouthed at Hinata being picked up and spun in a circle by a tall man with brown hair whose face Kiyoomi can’t see.
Fighting past the urge to rip Hinata out of the stranger's arms and the lump that crawls up his throat, he slides up next to Kageyama and clears his throat loudly to gain his attention. When it doesn’t work, he elbows Kageyama in the ribs just a little, because his throat feels tighter and tighter with every passing second that Hinata is laughing and hugging this guy back, and he wants to at least know who is responsible for the feeling.
Somehow, in the months that Kiyoomi’s been stealing perfect moments of Hinata being so much more Hinata with him than with anyone else, singing in Portuguese and making Kiyoomi laugh doing impressions of Miya’s angry Kansai-ben swearing and occasionally falling asleep against him when they have the common area to themselves, it never once dawned on Kiyoomi that if he could see all of the wonderfulness of Hinata Shouyou, eventually, someone else would, too.
He never once considered that by staying quiet, he was leaving room for someone else to speak up.
“Sorry, Sakusa-san, uh, what do you need?” Kageyama asks in an uncharacteristically shaken voice.
“Why do you look so panicked by the sight of that person?” He asks plainly. Kageyama looks at Kiyoomi strangely, and then back at the stranger who has his back to them, and then at Kiyoomi again and clears his throat.
“Surely, Sakusa-san, you’re aware of the,” he grimaces, “rivalry between my former senpai and myself? I mean, I’m sure Oikawa-san has become less obnoxious as he’s grown up, and I know those two became friends while they were playing abroad, but it’s just weird seeing Hinata and him getting along. Hinata’s just so nice and Oikawa-san is so…” Kageyama’s nose wrinkles as he searches for the right word, eventually landing on, “intolerable.”
Kiyoomi racks his brain for the name, searching through old game tapes watched with his Itachiyama teammates, Nationals matches he’d watched from the sidelines and issues of Volleyball Monthly, and then there, there he is.
Oikawa Tooru, captain of Aoba Johsai, setter, and every bit as into image as Miya is — or at least, that’s what Kiyoomi deduced from overly-posed photographs of him on the pages of Volleyball Monthly and the showy way he liked to point to where he was going to serve.
“Where did he go once he graduated? I don’t think I followed his career.”
Kageyama gives him a strange look. “You somehow missed him becoming CA San Juan’s setter?”
Ah. Well, that rang a bell — faintly, but it was there. “So those two met in Argentina, then?”
“No, no Oikawa-san was in Brazil for a week and ran into Hinata, unfortunately for me. I tried being mad at him for consorting with my greatest rival but he gave me freaking puppy dog eyes and was all like ‘how can you be angry at me for being excited to hear Japanese when I was missing our language and home so much’ and I caved because I somehow have no immunity to those damn puppy dog eyes and— wait, why do you even care that he’s friends with Oikawa-san?”
Kiyoomi freezes. He could lie, but he doesn’t know how convincing he would be since he tends to be blunt and honest no matter what, so he’ll try avoidance, instead. “I don’t. I was just curious.”
Kageyama snorts ungracefully and shoulder-bumps him. “I don’t know what you are, but it isn’t curious, Sakusa-san. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go and try and pry Hinata away for the official Karasuno reunion.”
“Boke, stop standing around and go and take a shower!” He yells as he strides towards the two of them. Oikawa turns around at the sound of Kageyama’s voice, and Kiyoomi immediately resents his pretty big brown eyes, though not as much as he hates the fact that he wears the same kind of arrogant smirk as Miya. Maybe it’s a setter thing, he doesn’t know, he just knows he doesn’t like it.
Thankfully he’s distracted by the much-welcome sight of Hinata jogging over to him, smiling and reaching out to pat his shoulder, carefully avoiding touching Kiyoomi’s bare skin. It reminds him he still hasn’t said anything about that, about the fact he doesn’t hate Hinata’s skin against his, about the fact that Hinata’s touch is different, exempt, and in a moment of sheer jealousy-blinded stupidity, blurts it out.
“You don’t have to avoid touching my skin, you know.”
Hinata blinks at him before smiling and gently pushing them both in the direction of the locker room. “But Sakusa-san, you hate people touching your skin. Why would I do something I know you hate?”
Kiyoomi’s heart flutters. “It’s different if it’s you.” Crap. That sounds way too obvious, so he adds, “Because I know you actually keep yourself clean, unlike the rest of the heathens on our team.”
One of Hinata’s arms wraps around him in a walking side hug, and Kiyoomi lets himself lean into it for a brief second, only pulling away when they reach the door to the locker room. It’s not that he’s ashamed to be seen being close with Hinata, quite the opposite — he’d like everyone to know that he’s so close with Hinata — but he doesn’t want people catching on to just how embarrassingly smitten he is.
Miya has the memory of a gnat unless it concerns him directly or volleyball, so he’s thankfully forgotten about the time he caught Kiyoomi checking out Hinata’s ass, but if he sees even a flicker of how much Kiyoomi cares about Hinata now, it’ll all come rushing back to him, and lord knows Miya Atsumu doesn’t specialise in subtlety or secret keeping. Hinata would hear about it in no time.
“Thanks, Sakusa-san. That means a lot coming from you,” Hinata says over his shoulder as they push through the door as if it doesn’t make the butterflies in Kiyoomi’s stomach do a happy dance. The sheer audacity of it is mind-boggling, the way Hinata just goes around throwing out sweet comments and sweeter smiles as if he has no idea that they make Kiyoomi’s body feel like it’s full of sunlight and happiness and all kinds of cliche things that are synonymous with joy.
He thinks of Hinata’s face as Oikawa hugged him — surprised and happy — and then his mouth does it again, blurts things out with no Goddamn permission. “Kiyoomi. You can call me Kiyoomi.”
Thankfully, Hinata has a habit of seeming to know when Kiyoomi doesn’t want to draw attention to things. Like right now, in fact. Instead of making a thing of the fact he’s the first person Kiyoomi’s given permission to use his given name to — Miya doesn’t count since Miya’s never had fucking permission, he just says it — he nods and tells Kiyoomi to call him Shouyou.
And Kiyoomi’s still full of sunlight, shining even brighter inside of him, until Shouyou leaves to join his former Karasuno teammates and Kiyoomi’s left to return to their dormitory with Miya and Bokuto and there’s no Shouyou there to defend him against their persistent demands for him to come out and drink with the team, so he changes out of his lounging clothes and lets himself be dragged to an izakaya.
Maybe it’ll make a good distraction.
Kiyoomi was wrong, it will make an utterly piss-poor distraction, because they dragged him to the same damn izakaya the Karasuno alumni are drinking at, and his eye keeps catching on orange hair across the room where the crows are tucked away, slightly behind a corner. Fleeting glances that don’t fail to grab his attention with an iron grip, to the point he jolts in place and startles poor Inunaki a couple of times.
He manages to hold a conversation with Tomas, on his other side, about the recent Raijin versus Green Rockets game for a solid eight or nine minutes, and then he’s unfortunately pulled into a debate by Miya and Bokuto as they argue over which one of them is more popular — it’s Bokuto, obviously, because he doesn’t have a tendency to stick his foot in his mouth offensively at fan meets — but his attention keeps drawing back to bright orange curls and whichever member of Karasuno is currently talking to their owner.
He knows that he doesn’t want to ruin his friendship with Shouyou, because having Shouyou around makes Kiyoomi feel accepted and seen in a way he’s not sure he ever has before, but there’s a new threat to that feeling now.
Oikawa, or really any guy brave enough to do things like pick him up and hug him, could come along and become Shouyou’s something and then what will they be? Will Kiyoomi have to pretend to get to know Shouyou’s boyfriend and get along with them while he hides jealousy and other unpleasant emotions? Will he miss out on quiet yoga, Portuguese singing and having Shouyou fall asleep when they watch things together on the couch because he’s off with his boyfriend?
If Kiyoomi’s going to lose him anyway he might as well lose him because he tried to keep him, right? It’s got to be better than watching Shouyou fade away because someone else had the courage to be honest about their feelings for him. Fuck, anything has to be better than that.
He downs the drink that’s remained untouched in front of him the whole evening, ignoring the surprised brow raise that gets him from Meian, because if he’s going to face the firing squad, he’s doing it with a light buzz in his veins.
The MSBY group get back to the dorms before Shouyou returns from his own outing, which gives Kiyoomi the time to decide where he’s going to swallow his anxiety and own up to his feelings. He settles on Shouyou’s room, because then if it goes badly he can flee the scene of the crime.
If everything goes the best possible way, it won’t go badly, and then Kiyoomi won’t have to leave—
Nope, nuh-uh, he is not getting sidetracked down that route. If it doesn’t go badly, he gains a boyfriend and keeps his best friend. Win-win, and that’s enough. Unlike Miya, he is not ruled by an obsessive need to have his dick validated, though he is — again, unlike Miya — mature enough to admit he doesn’t hate the idea of things heading in that direction.
Hell, after the official sex education he got as a young teenager he spent about a week researching the most hygienic ways to have sex just in case he ever found someone he was willing to do it with. Just because he has oddities doesn’t mean he doesn’t also want some normal experiences out of life, and Shouyou is… Shouyou is someone he doesn’t have to talk himself into the idea of being that comfortable or intimate with.
Still, though, that’s not Kiyoomi’s first want for if Shouyou doesn’t reject him. The first thing he wants is to hold Shouyou’s hand, or to just hug him properly in public because he doesn’t have to worry about Miya and the others making assumptions and letting Shouyou know what they are because Shouyou will already know.
Yeah. Yeah, that’s what he wants the most, to be able to just wrap his arms around Shouyou no matter who’s watching, maybe flip Miya off as he does it just because it’s always satisfying to do that and combining the two sounds really good to semi-tipsy Kiyoomi.
Before he can get really ridiculous and start thinking about how good it would feel to set to Shouyou just to see Miya’s face — Oh God, it would feel so good — he hears the front door open and then close with a quiet click, followed by the shuffle of Shouyou taking his shoes off and padding through to the common area in his socks.
“Shouyou,” he blurts out, barely noticing that he accidentally dropped the honorific as Shouyou turns in the direction of his voice and smiles at him.
“Kiyoomi-san! I didn’t think you’d still be awake,” he comments, sounding pleasantly surprised. He heads in the direction of the couch, and that’s when all reason leaves Kiyoomi’s typically rational brain in favour of panicking and grabbing Shouyou’s wrist quite rudely to drag him to his own bedroom. Honestly, his family would be appalled at just how ill-mannered gay panicking Kiyoomi can be, he thinks as he tugs Shouyou in and firmly shuts the door behind the two of them.
“Are you okay, Kiyoomi-san?” Shouyou asks, tilting his head to the side and searching with wide, sparkling hazel eyes. Kiyoomi forces himself to inhale and exhale the way Shouyou does whenever he starts a meditation session, deep and cleansing, and then he meets Shouyou’s eyes as unflinchingly as he can given how anxious he is.
On the walk back to the dorms, Kiyoomi planned this out. He organised his thoughts, even envisaged a bullet-point list in his head with notations and asterisk-marked explanations, and yet here he stands, mentally grasping for said list, only for his head to feel entirely empty.
Shouyou’s still looking at him.
Kiyoomi’s still not said anything.
With a concerned frown, Shouyou steps closer to him, and once again the rational part of Kiyoomi’s brain desserts him and decides that ah, if he can’t think of words, actions will have to do, so he steps closer to Shouyou in turn and before Shouyou can open his mouth and question what’s going on, Kiyoomi ducks his head down and seals his lips over Shouyou’s while alarm bells start ringing in the back of his mind, alerting him that he has deviated so far from his plan that he might as well have asked Miya what to do.
He’s ready to step back and apologise when — against all odds — Shouyou kisses him back. It’s nothing like Shouyou on the court where he’s all fire and determination, it’s more like Shouyou doing yoga. It’s soft and fluid but strong, and it’s a little bit perfect.
When Kiyoomi realises he needs to breathe, he pulls back just far enough to rest his forehead against Shouyou’s, keeping his eyes closed. They just breathe, sharing the same air, until a few beats pass and Kiyoomi realises that somehow Shouyou’s breath smells like peppermint despite spending hours in the izakaya drinking.
“Why doesn’t your breath smell like alcohol?”
Shouyou huffs a soft laugh through his nose. “Why did you wait so long to do that?”
A breath hiccups in Kiyoomi’s chest. Why did you wait so long to do that, like Shouyou’s wanted this, wanted Kiyoomi. Waited for him. “I’ll answer yours if you answer mine,” he bargains. Shouyou smiles and Kiyoomi rejoices in the way it makes his eyes sparkle up close like they are.
“I don’t like the way my mouth tastes after I’ve been drinking, so when I stop for the night, I chew gum if I can’t brush my teeth right away,” he explains, and Kiyoomi almost faints from how hard of a thump his heart gives. “Your turn.”
“You sing in Portuguese in the morning. When I’m the only one there, you sing in Portuguese,” he says like that somehow answers everything. In fairness, it does, but only because Kiyoomi has the context for why that matters so much.
“Oh…kay,” Shouyou says slowly, like he’s focusing on figuring out what kind of riddle Kiyoomi’s posed him with.
“You sing in Portuguese in the morning, and I didn’t want to kiss you and have you not kiss me back and then never hear you sing in Portuguese again because you were uncomfortable around me,” he elaborates. Shouyou breathes out a soft oh like he really does get it, and Kiyoomi feels the hands that landed on his waist when Shouyou kissed him back tighten like Shouyou doesn’t want to let him go.
That’s okay, he isn’t planning on being let go of.
“Why… Why didn’t you…” he trails off, wanting to know why Shouyou was waiting for him instead of taking action himself — Shouyou’s better with these things, with feelings and reading other people — but thankfully, he seems to understand what Kiyoomi’s trying to ask.
“Kiyoomi-san, if I kissed you and you didn’t want it, I didn’t think you’d ever trust me to be physically near you again,” Shouyou tells him with a quietly musical laugh. “I’d rather suffer in silence than lose that trust from you. It’s precious, you know?”
Kiyoomi smiles, because he does know, and because he can lean down and kiss Shouyou again, so he does.
Hinata Shouyou as an adult is refined potential, enviable energy and stamina, and only occasional short-sightedness. He’s loud, both in volume and in aura — ‘I’m here, I’m here! You’re already looking but if you keep looking, you’ll see so much more’ — and he smiles at the smallest acts of kindness. People like him, either because he’s a good friend or a good opponent, and his unbridled honesty as well as his adoration of the game has a tendency to draw people into his orbit.
Kiyoomi knows all of this thanks to firsthand experience. He wakes up to Shouyou’s energy, falls asleep to his smiles. He hears often about Hinata Shouyou, and almost always fondly, though he’s confident that no one can match how fond he is of his boyfriend.
He knows that once upon a time, his boyfriend got a fever and was benched during nationals, and he knows that it shapes Shouyou into someone who cares deeply for his body and wellbeing, owns books on self-care, and breathes evenly when he meditates. It teaches Shouyou to take care of his health instead of focusing on overworking himself because he has a responsibility to his teammates.
Another thing he knows firsthand is that Shouyou’s smile is warm and makes Kiyoomi’s insides heat gently in response, like curling up in front of a fire on a cold day with a good book, and now he gets to bask in that comforting heat as often as he wants because Shouyou smiles a lot, but he smiles the most for Kiyoomi.
The moments that he learns new facts about Shouyou — like that he’s a scarily good dancer, or that he doesn’t like cheesecake — never fail to make Kiyoomi happy. He wants to know everything about him, gather the information and file it away so that he’s always the best boyfriend he can be, because he knows Shouyou does it for him.
He’s seen the note app on Shouyou’s phone, where he jots down Kiyoomi’s favourite brand of hand sanitiser or lists restaurants that have impeccable hygiene ratings. Kiyoomi will let Bokuto spike a ball at his face before he gives Shouyou less than his all when Shouyou never fails to give Kiyoomi one hundred-and-ten percent.
Once or twice, in the six months between kissing Shouyou for the first time and now, Kiyoomi wonders where they’ll be in five years’ time, because you better believe he’s playing for keeps when it comes to Shouyou, and he knows that with the way Shouyou rockets his way through life and progress, they could be anywhere. Maybe even married.
Fond smiles, interlaced fingers, admiration of a person who fights when the odds are stacked heavily against him, and adoration of someone who buys him berry-scented hand sanitiser that clips onto his sports bag are all that Kiyoomi can offer up if you ask him what he thinks about Hinata Shouyou.