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It was a Tuesday, which meant no practice, which meant Kageyama Tobio was lying on his back in his dorm room, staring at the ceiling, feeling vaguely like a dying fish.
He’d already done his stretches. Already rewatched two old Nationals matches. Already organized his volleyball shoes by level of wear. The clock said 10:47 PM, and he was so profoundly bored that he could feel his own heartbeat in his teeth.
His phone buzzed. Just a notification from the team group chat—Tanaka posting a dumb meme. Kageyama swiped it away. Then, because his thumb had a mind of its own, he opened Instagram.
He didn’t post much. He followed teams, a few athletes, and… Hinata.
Hinata Shouyou, his idiot partner, his decoy, the sun in human form who had somehow decided that Kageyama’s sets were worth dying for. Kageyama had followed him months ago, back when it seemed like the polite thing to do. He’d never actually looked.
But tonight, he was bored.
So he tapped Hinata’s profile.
The first few posts were normal—volleyball drills, a blurry photo of a meat bun, a repost of some inspirational quote about never giving up. Annoying. Very on-brand.
Then he scrolled deeper.
A picture from middle school: Hinata, shorter and scrawnier, grinning in front of a net that looked way too tall for him. Caption: “Someday.”
Kageyama’s chest did something weird. He ignored it.
Another photo—Hinata and his little sister, both making ridiculous faces. He looked soft there. Unpolished. Real.
Another—just a shot of the sunset over Miyagi, with no caption at all. Kageyama found himself staring at it for way too long, trying to imagine what Hinata had been thinking when he took it.
What the hell am I doing?
But he didn’t stop. He scrolled until his thumb ached. He found a video of Hinata trying to do a handstand and falling over, laughing so hard the audio crackled. He found a picture of Hinata at the beach, hair wind-tangled, cheeks pink from the cold.
And somewhere around the seventeenth post—a candid shot of Hinata mid-laugh at some team dinner, eyes crinkled, mouth wide open—Kageyama realized he was smiling.
Not a smirk. Not a competitive grin. A stupid, helpless, soft smile.
He dropped his phone on his face.
“Ow.”
He lay there in the dark, heart hammering like he’d just finished a five-set match. His brain, usually so good at calculating trajectories and timings, was now just replaying that laugh. That stupid, loud, annoying laugh that Hinata did when Karasuno won a point.
This is a problem.
He’d seen Hinata every single day for months. He’d yelled at him, tossed to him, bumped into him during practice drills. He’d never once thought—okay, maybe he’d thought, but never felt—the way he felt right now, alone in his bed, phone screen lighting up the ceiling.
The next morning at practice, Kageyama couldn’t look at him.
Hinata, oblivious as ever, bounced up to him. “Oi, Kageyama! Toss to me today! Your tosses yesterday were kinda slow, so I couldn't—”
“Shut up, dumbass.”
But his voice came out weird. Strained. Hinata tilted his head, curious.
“You okay? You look red. Are you sick?”
“I’m not sick.”
“Your ears are red too.”
“Just—get in position.”
Hinata shrugged and ran off to the other side of the court. Kageyama watched him go, watched the way his calves moved, the way his jersey caught the morning light, and felt something lurch in his stomach.
Left hook, right punch to the gut.
Yeah. That.
That afternoon, the team went to a fast-food place near the gym. Everyone was loud and shoving. Hinata somehow ended up next to Kageyama in the narrow bathroom line, pressed shoulder to shoulder because the hallway was too small.
“Move over, you’re elbowing me,” Hinata whispered loudly.
“You move.”
“There’s literally nowhere to move.”
They stood there, too close. Kageyama could smell Hinata’s shampoo—something cheap and citrusy. He could see the small scar above Hinata’s eyebrow from when he’d run into a doorframe in middle school. He could count his freckles.
Hinata looked up at him, brow furrowed. “Why are you staring?”
“I’m not.”
“You’re doing that weird face again.”
“This is just my face.”
“No, it’s not. Your normal face is scary. This one is—” Hinata paused, squinting. “Sadder? Softer? I don’t know. It’s weird.”
Kageyama looked away, throat tight. “Just shut up and wait for the bathroom.”
But his heart was slamming against his ribs so hard he thought it might actually stop.
Later that night, back in his dorm, Kageyama opened Instagram again. His thumb hovered over Hinata’s profile.
He closed the app.
Opened it again.
Closed it.
Then he typed into his notes app, deleted it, typed it again, and finally left himself a single sentence:
I think I want to hold his hand.
He didn’t sleep well that night. But when he saw Hinata at practice the next morning—bright, loud, impossibly there—he didn’t look away.
He just tossed the ball, perfectly, and watched Hinata fly.
And for the first time, Kageyama Tobio admitted that falling didn’t always hurt.
Sometimes it felt like the most alive he’d ever been.