These are notes taken from the manga Haikyuu is from

Trainings some days are good. Some days, Hinata walks out of the gym with bruised palms and sore legs, but even so, he manages to feel like he’s floating, high on the knowledge that he’s improving, that he’s doing things right, that he’s pulling his weight in this team—this team that means so much to him, now, and the hours they spend together on the court are more than enough to fill his chest with so much sweet satisfaction that it makes all the sweat and the pain and the bruises disappear. There are other days, though, that go not so well. Hinata knows that it’s only natural, that without the lows, the highs wouldn’t be highs, but even so—even so it still hurts when an hour passes without him landing as many hits as he’d like to, when he tries, dammit, he tries but he’s still not getting it right.

His teammates are kind, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less. Those days, Hinata doesn’t float out of the gym. He shuffles, feet dragging against the ground, and the weight that curls in the pit of his stomach feels like it’s dragging him down, makes him wonder if the jumps he’d managed to pull off just a week ago were just sheer dumb luck. Today is another spectacularly bad practice—while Hinata usually doesn’t let anything faze him (not even serving a ball directly to the back of Kageyama’s head), today had just… not gone well. Hinata, for all his cheerfulness and sheer determination, is only human. He can’t keep that up all the time. That’s what he tells Sugawara-san, who kindly asks after him after practice is over, and it’s times like these that he’s grateful to have someone like Sugawara on the team—he doesn’t ask any further questions, just smiles and pats Hinata on the back, tells him to have an early night and hopefully he’ll feel better in the morning. Kageyama, though, is not as kind.

“What were you doing today?” he hisses, arms crossed tightly across his chest. He’s got a water bottle clutched in one hand, and Hinata stares at it instead of meeting Kageyama's eyes as he replies because he’s just not in the mood to deal with Kageyama’s bullshit today. “Sometimes we commoners have our off days. Not everyone can be perfect all the time like you, king.” The last word comes out a lot harsher than Hinata means it to, and for a moment he freezes, the gravity of his words hitting him full force, and all of a sudden all that washes right out of him. In its wake lies only a deep sense of regret and shame for taking out his stupid—completely unfounded, it’s not even Kageyama’s fault—annoyance at a well-meaning team mate. There’s a half-formed apology on Hinata’s lips as he finally looks up at Kageyama’s face, expecting to see a dark shadow having fallen over those sharp features, and— The words die on the tip of Hinata’s tongue when Kageyama looks far from angry.

(He even looks a little… Sympathetic?) There’s a terse silence where neither of them say a thing. All around them their seniors and fellow first-years bustle around the court, packing up for the day and yelling to each other across the gym, but it all registers as nothing but white noise to Hinata, and he can hear his heart pounding in his ears as he tries desperately to say something, anything— It’s Kageyama who breaks the tension first. He uncrosses his arms, unscrews the cap on his bottle, and then takes a long swig of water from it. Hinata remains dumbfounded, just watches as Kageyama wraps his lips around the neck of the bottle, watches the way his Adam’s apple bobs in his throat as he swallows. He only realizes he’s been staring when Kageyama finally puts the bottle back down, and Hinata has to tear his eyes away, looking down at the floor as if he wasn’t just noticing how red and wet Kageyama’s lips looked at that precise moment—

“Here,” Kageyama says, brusquely, shoving the bottle under Hinata’s nose. “You can have the rest.” He walks away after that, leaving Hinata clutching the half-filled bottle weakly, fingers barely gripping the thin plastic. He does take a drink from it, in the end, and definitely, absolutely, positively does not think about the exact curve of Kageyama’s lips.

Next time

“Looks like the dynamic duo are at it again,” Tsukishima whispers conspiratorially, except it’s not really a whisper when he says it loud enough for everyone in the near vicinity to hear. Including said dynamic duo themselves, namely one Hinata Shoyo and one Kageyama Tobio, but they don’t even care because they’re too busy yelling at each other—half the team is looking at them like they’re thinking of stepping in, and the other half is carrying on with training as if they’re not even there—so used to their antics that they couldn’t even care less by this point, aware that after five minutes tops they’ll be back to tossing and spiking as if that argument had never even existed in the first place. (Such is the nature of their relationship, Tsukishima murmurs to Yamaguchi, snickering all the while, and Yamaguchi, on his part, wisely chooses not to comment on that.)

“I told you not to back down even when it’s clear that it’s just a feint, that’s the whole point of a feint, why can’t you just get that into your head—” “That’s what I’m doing, you jerk, and maybe if you just stuck your head out of your ass for once you’d see that that’s exactly what I’m trying to do—” “Well try harder!” “Well stop breathing down my neck—” Somehow, throughout the course of their argument, they’ve gotten closer and closer to each other, and now their foreheads are pressed against each other’s, Kageyama leaning downwards and Hinata practically on his tiptoes by this point— (It’s actually kind of cute, Yamaguchi wants to say, but doesn’t, because he fears for his life.) --until all of a sudden they’re hit by the realization that their faces are practically inches apart, and Hinata can feel Kageyama’s breath on his own mouth, and— They spring apart, almost like the like poles of two different magnets, Hinata’s face almost as red as his wayward hair.

They don't speak to each other for the next hour. NEXT

Hinata almost bursts into tears when Sawamura-san and Sugawara-san walk into the gym together with two shopping bags full of ice cream tubs between them. Tanaka actually does tear up a little when they set the tubs of ice cream down and start handing out spoons to everyone on the team. “Is this real? Am I dead? Is this what heaven looks like?” Tanaka sniffles as Sugawara hands him a spoon. “If heaven is a high school gymnasium filled with a bunch of sweaty teenage boys, then I’m not sure that’s where I want to go when I die anymore,” Sawamura answers from across the room, and his answer earns him a collective round of laughter from the team. It’s nice, Hinata thinks, sitting down cross-legged on the gymnasium floor as he tears the lid off the tub of cookies and cream ice cream. He’d never done anything like this before, not in middle school—not with his classmates, and definitely not with any team to be heard of.

It’s… nice. It almost feels like a family, and the thought fills him up with so much warmth that he can’t help but smile a little as he finally manages to pry the lid off with the edge of his spoon. “What’re you smiling at?” Kageyama calls from beside him, and the smile on Hinata’s face only widens when he turns to see Kageyama parking his butt on the floor next to where Hinata’s seated himself. “Nothing,” Hinata says, still grinning (maybe just a little bit maniacally) as he spoons himself a scoop of ice cream. “Just really happy.” Kageyama snorts, snatches the tub of ice cream out of Hinata’s hand—with his spoon still stuck in between the almost-frozen solid chunks of ice cream. “What a weirdo,” he murmurs as he picks up the spoon, taking the scoop of ice cream that Hinata had intended for himself along with it, and ignores Hinata’s cries of protests as he pops it into his mouth—and makes sure to clean the spoon off with a few thorough licks of the tongue as well.

What he doesn’t expect is for Hinata’s mouth to clamp shut as he finishes the ice cream off. What he expects even less is for Hinata’s face to very rapidly turn a very, very bright shade of red. Quickly he passes the tub of ice cream back to Hinata, spoon and all, and the moment passes quicky when Hinata sticks a whole spoonful of ice cream into his mouth and then immediately follows it up with a very high-pitched yelp and a minute straight of complaining about how much his teeth ache (because only an idiot would shovel an entire scoop of ice cream into his mouth despite the knowledge that he has sensitive teeth, honestly). It almost makes Kageyama forget about the whole incident regarding the stolen spoon. (It almost makes Kageyama forget that what he expected the least of all was that he’d felt his own cheeks start to heat up in response to Hinata’s rapidly reddening face. He doesn’t want to think about what that might possibly mean.)

NEXT

Their last match of their first year is an emotional one. It’s a win, of course it’s a win, but it’s a very close one. When it’s over, Kageyama feels strangely empty, as if the match had taken away a part of him, and when the match had ended that fragment had disappeared forever, leaving him feeling slightly hollow and extremely unbalanced. He’s never felt this way about a match before, and certainly not a victory. Victories were victories and they were meant to be celebrated, so why is his captain crying when he should be smiling, dammit? Through the mess of group hugs and linked arms and pats on the back that are just a little bit too forceful Kageyama finds Hinata, or Hinata finds Kageyama (he’s not quite sure which), and he’s pulled into a hug, arms wrapped around his back and pulling him close, Hinata’s face crushing into the angle of his shoulder.

They stay like this for a while, unmoving, while all around them people continue to sweep past them, as if they’ve managed to carve out their own temporary corner in time, and… …and Kageyama should be backing away, should be extricating himself from Hinata’s surprisingly strong grip, but. But he doesn’t. He stays on, holds on, and when Hinata raises his head, lips brushing dangerously close to edge of his cheek, Kageyama doesn’t move, doesn’t say a thing. (Doesn't have to.)

NEXT

When it happens, it’s not romantic. Things between them have never been romantic, after all. They’re too stupid for that. And maybe they’ve both been winding their way to this very moment, perhaps ever since that fateful day in middle school when they’d bumped into each other outside the boy’s bathroom and Kageyama had glared Hinata down and Hinata hadn’t backed down an inch, but their journey to this exact point in time was never meant to be one filled with fireworks and grand orchestrations and extravagant fanfare. No, neither of them are really surprised at all when they find themselves alone in the club room, the two first-years (well, soon to be second-years—it’ll be their last manual labor task as the youngest members of the team) assigned to the final cleaning of their storeroom. Hinata’s got a box full of knee guards in his hands, and he’s standing on a stool trying to deposit it on top of a cupboard while Kageyama tries (and fails) to cobble the volleyballs into some semblance of order.

He’s not quite sure how it happens, but Hinata’s foot catches something and he slips, knocks the stool over and before he knows it he’s falling backwards, just seconds away from the back of his skull meeting the hard concrete floor, when— —Kageyama catches him. He acts fast, and the moment he sees the stool tipping over precariously out of the corner of his eye he drops the volleyballs in his hands and dashes over, arms outstretched, and he catches Hinata, the both of them falling over unceremoniously, Hinata landing on top of Kageyama ungracefully in a tangle of limbs. “You’re an idiot,” Kageyama mumbles, with what feels like the beginnings of a bruise starting to bloom on his elbows. Hinata kisses him. It’s not anything special. Fireworks don’t go off. An orchestra doesn’t spontaneously burst into song. The world doesn’t end. No fiery comets in the sky, no earthquakes that threaten to swallow the city whole, no giant monsters rampaging through the town.

Just the press of Hinata’s lips against Kageyama’s—soft, dry, a little bit chapped. Kageyama kisses back, because he can, and because he’s wanted to for possibly a lot longer than he’d realized. Tomorrow he will wake up with cuts on his arms and bruises along his back, and he will send Hinata a scathing text about being a clumsy fool, and how clumsiness has no place on a volleyball court. But for now. For now Hinata’s fingers brush against Kageyama’s cheek, and Kageyama reaches out to curl his hands in Hinata’s untamable hair, and. It’s perfect. It’s absolutely perfect. DONE COPY AND PASTED FROM THIS https://archiveofourown.org/works/1604792