A/N: While I was rummaging through my fanfiction folders, I happened upon a long, long overdue oneshot gift that I'd been meaning to give someone... so if you're picklestpickle on tumblr and you happen to be reading this, it's for you. I'd planned to post it on Christmas, or a bit after Kageyama's birthday, but that idea sorta got thrown out the window (considering that it's nowhere near December right now OTL).

Anyhow, here's a light-hearted KageHina oneshot, depicting their exploits with phone charms.
Haikyuu! is owned by Haruichi Furudate; the phone charms idea is owned by picklestpickle.
The cover was edited by me, while the crow pictures were drawn by Foxmi on dA.
...And that's all, I think, so please do enjoy (and review if you'd like) ^^~

When Hinata first pointed it out to him, Kageyama nearly lost possession of his eyes (and probably half his brain).

The 'it' in question was, at first glance, innocent enough; it was a phone charm, a fad that had swept through Karasuno High and probably all the other schools within their prefecture, and it was in the shape of a baby crow. That, in itself, wasn't too remarkable either, since phone charms existed in a wide variety of shapes and sizes –Kageyama had seen a cartoon poop that he'd never admit to being cute– but what made it remarkable was not its insanely large eyes or its lopsided grin, or even its wild and seemingly untameable patch of feathers atop its plastic head.

No, what made it remarkable was how he'd immediately associated this particular phone charm with the clueless idiot next to him.

Said clueless idiot had dragged him out in between their matches to go shopping, something that only the clueless idiot in question, Hinata Shouyou, could ever achieve; if it was anyone else, Kageyama would probably bite their head off and eat it for dinner. Even then, as his sleeve had been stretched beyond the length that most normal sleeves could endure, Karasuno's famed setter was complaining all the way to the odds-and-bobs stores that were prevalent in such areas… though, of course, he'd swear that he was arguing, like a mature adult, and not whining his ass off like a spoilt brat. He'd been complaining as he'd been dragged into store after store of useless objects especially designed to deplete one's allowance, though his angry growls had winded down into irritable scowls and dark glares, but the sight of the phone charm had set it off again.

It wasn't made any better by Hinata's pleading expression, either.

"Aww, c'mon, can't you see how cute it is?" his insufferable team-mate whined, while his brown eyes widened to match the phone charm nestled in his palm. "Why wouldn't you like something like this?"

"Because it's expensive and stupid, and you don't need it," Kageyama curtly replied, while he frowned at Hinata's exasperated groan.

There was no way he'd mention that the phone charm looked a bit too much like a certain loud wannabe ace and that, no matter what anyone said, he didn't feel a need to join in the latest fads like certain people wanted him to. And besides, he didn't see the need in the phone charm when Hinata could just stare at his own face in the mirror and pretend it was good enough to exist on his phone. Of course, he didn't voice that particular thought (or he'd get more whining for his pains), but he needn't have bothered to hold back when his irritating team-mate opened his mouth again.

"But I spent all my money on Natsu's gift!" Hinata loudly complained. He'd probably forgotten about all the ice-blocks he'd bought for himself over the past few days and the variety of snacks that he'd instantly gravitated to whenever they were within smelling distance of a store, but who was he to open his mouth and remind the idiot of his forgetfulness?

"And your food," Kageyama reminded him in a tone that was definitely not smug.

…Well, what could he say? It was fun provoking his childish team-mate; heck, he practically lived for the moments when he'd puff out his cheeks and squeeze his eyes shut in a half-defiant, half-amusing manner, like right now.

"B-But it's cute and I kinda want to give this to someone as a gift and I don't have enough money and pleeeeeease just lend me like five bucks, I swear I'll pay you back!" Hinata stumbled over his words, thanks to the speed at which they'd left his mouth, and Kageyama swore he saw someone giggling and pointing towards them. If he hadn't been so absorbed with his current endeavours, which included shutting his team-mate up and finding a way to drag him out of the infernal store, he might've picked up on the affectionate smile that said giggling person had bestowed on them.

But, luckily (or unluckily, depending on how he wanted to see things), his attention was stuck on the bright orange fuzz of energy that refused to give up on the phone charm. That, and the insanely large puppy-dog eyes that said bright orange fuzz of energy was giving him.

"Okay, look," Kageyama sighed, as he snorted in pure irritation (and not amusement), "if you want to give this to someone as a gift then you're supposed to use your own money, idiot. Besides, if you had two brain cells to rub together, you'd realize that getting brain-freeze doesn't equate to using your money effectively, and that I should give you no pity whatsoever for being this stupid."

"…I can always pay you back later!" Hinata shouted as he puffed his cheeks up again, and Kageyama almost saw his soul leave his body as he sighed for the umpteenth time. He had just insulted his team-mate at least three times in his unusually long spiel and the only thing that he'd focused on was none of it. Typical, really.

He didn't even know why he li– err, tolerated such a person.

And he certainly wasn't sighing and handing over five bucks so that Hinata would stop giving him those infernal puppy-eyes and simply leave him alone.

…Wait, what?

"Whoa, are you seriously giving me five bucks?!" Hinata gasped, even as his eyes brightened to an almost feverish level and he quickly grasped the money in his own hands. "Awesome, now I can buy two phone charms!"

A vein in Kageyama's forehead nearly burst when he saw the two distinctly crow-shaped phone charms nestled in his team-mate's hands and the sign that he'd somehow missed as they'd been bickering for the past minute or so. Since when was his eyesight so bad that he couldn't read the large letters emblazoned across the stuffed racks?

"You can just buy one of these things for three dollars?" Kageyama seethed. "Why the hell would you buy two for five dollars when you only want one of them, you braindead idiot?!"

"Because I saw another one that I wanted!" Hinata huffily replied, though he refused to show the other one in question to his friend. "And you gave it already, so just suck it up and let me buy them already!"

"Argh, I wanted to buy some milk with that money later!" Kageyama growled angrily, but Hinata had already sped away to the counter and purchased his damn phone charms before he could do anything more than prepare his patented glare.

Well, it just seemed like he'd have to bore a hole into the numbskull's head later, when Hinata wasn't in the view of other witnesses who might testify to his part in his team-mate's sudden death.

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"Uh, is there a reason why Kageyama's trying to intimidate the window into submission…?"

"He's probably just angry that we lost to Nekoma in our practice match again," Hinata casually replied, though Tanaka looked anything but convinced.

The incident with the phone charms had all but faded from Hinata's mind… but the case had not been the same for Kageyama. He had run out of money for his beloved milk on the day of the practice exam and, for some reason or another, he'd come down with some sort of stomach ache halfway through the match, which had cost them the game. As revenge, he'd made sure to ignore Hinata for the rest of the day, which was somewhat unusual when they were often bickering or poking fun at each other.

But, from what Kageyama could see, Hinata wasn't particularly bothered by their separation.

Sure, he'd gotten a few puppy-dog eyes and the occasional pout when Hinata had realized that he was being rather coldly rejected, but he'd bounced back to his usual chirpy self as soon as that blasted Nekoma setter had whispered something into his ear. He honestly didn't care about whatever had passed between the two unlikely friends as they'd finished warming down and had chatted to one another. If it wasn't for the fact that he was adamantly engaged in his cold shouldering of his volleyball partner, Kageyama might've glared at the way Hinata and Kenma, or whatever his name was, chatted with the ease that came to good friends… albeit ones that were polar opposites in their nature.

Perhaps, if Kageyama had dwelt on his feelings, he might've recognised them for jealousy; jealousy at the way Hinata laughed so openly with the quiet pudding-head and the way he seemed to be so at ease with him. However, his thoughts were far too occupied with another thought to care much for his strange reaction to Hinata's friendships.

Namely, the memory of Hinata's troublesome gift in Kenma's hands.

Kageyama had automatically assumed that the gift would be for his family or, at the very least, some sort of relative who desperately wanted some sort of present from Hinata. It had come as a shock to him when he'd seen the little (and most definitely not cute) phone charm in the Nekoma setter's hands, but that wasn't the only thing that had shocked him. For some odd reason, a bitter taste had entered his mouth as soon as he'd seen the hesitant light in Kenma's eyes and the way in which he'd stared at the phone charm in his hand…

…and the bitter taste was nothing like overdue milk or bile, or anything Kageyama had ever tasted.

If he'd dwelt on the taste and linked it to his thoughts, Kageyama might've realized that he was feeling something extremely unpleasant, much like the possessive streak that wormed its way into some people when they perceived their love interest with other members of society. Unfortunately, he was so engaged in seething mindlessly and staring into the nothingness of the dusk that none of these thoughts ever crossed his mind. The fact that he'd never felt said feeling before also wasn't helping much, either.

Which probably explained why he had completely missed Hinata's humming as he threaded black string through his phone and clumsily wrapped something else into a lumpy mass of black.

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There were times when Kageyama unintentionally avoided him because he was too engrossed in his grumpiness to care about the world at large, and there were other times when Kageyama purposefully avoided him because the majority of his grumpiness was directed at him. Even though Hinata hadn't been around him enough to figure out which was which, he was almost certain that he was being rather deliberately avoided, because the Karasuno setter always disappeared on him. Normally, if he ducked out of the way once or even twice, Hinata could almost imagine that someone was calling to Kageyama –he was, after all, somewhat popular, despite his stupidly grumpy expressions and his ice-prick attitude– but when he'd ducked away for the tenth time, even he could tell that something was up.

And, as much as he hated to admit it, if someone as dense as he could figure out that something was wrong, then everyone else could probably see that something was wrong too.

Unfortunately, it wasn't that simple to pinpoint what exactly was wrong with him. He still got tosses from Kageyama during volleyball practice… but they were slightly off in a way that only he could feel. As far as he could see, everyone else was getting their usual perfect tosses from the King, yet the tosses he got were passable but not quite right. But, even though they trained together and were often standing side-by-side, all Hinata needed to do was open his mouth with the intention of speaking… and Kageyama would be gone in an instant, rushing away with some half-arsed excuse on his lips and something dark in his eyes.

It was irritating him like nothing else normally irritated him and, if things continued as they currently were, Hinata was probably going to peg a ball at Kageyama's head… and it wouldn't be an accident, either. He'd make sure that he smashed the stupid King into the court's polished floors and then laugh in his face for being a cowardly idiot, even if it probably meant that he'd get murdered later on. He'd jump that hurdle when he came to it, but honestly…

…anything would be better than Kageyama's studious cold shoulder of him.

It was in this rather depressed state of mind that Hinata stumbled into someone as he made his way towards his usual lunch retreat. If he had been more intent on his thoughts than his emotions, he might've simply bowed his head and lurched onwards but, thanks to his screaming nerves, he had the misfortune of glancing upwards. Instead of seeing a nondescript pair of eyes that would invariably cast him a glare, as if to say that he was extremely idiotic for being deep in thought (which he probably was), he got a singular pair of eyes that he'd been thinking about bare moments earlier. Of course, he'd been thinking about said eyes while they were glowing with murderous intent, not brimming with unusual panicky nervousness as they swiftly moved out of sight, but—

Wait, what?

The thought flashed across Hinata's mind moments before his legs kicked into action as they spun his body around and gave chase to Kageyama's fleeing form, but it seemed as if his body instinctively knew what his mind had taken a few seconds to figure out. Instead of standing around and doing nothing –which would've probably done nothing for him anyway, since he wasn't exactly the sharpest tool in the tool shed– he'd ran, an action which was both familiar and calming for him. So while he ran after Kageyama and hurled things like 'slow down, dammit!', 'stop already, Bakageyama!' and other such savoury terms, Hinata's mind quietly cleared itself as best as it could.

Which meant that, when Kageyama finally flopped against the familiar flight of stairs leading to the gymnasium's welcoming interior, Hinata knew exactly what he had to do.

…Unfortunately, knowing what he had to do and doing what he had to do were two entirely different things.

"O-Oi, Kageyama, are you dead?" Hinata stuttered, as he bent down and prodded Kageyama's slumped body. "I've kinda been meaning to give you something, but there's no point if it's gonna be at your funeral…"

"I don't die that easily, idiot," the body in front of him growled, and Hinata was torn between relief and indignation as Kageyama laboriously raised his head and levelled his patented glare at him from his unusually pale face. "Seriously, do you think I'd be dead after this amount of exercise?"

"But you were just lying there like you were dead!" Hinata protested, but the only acknowledgement he received for his misplaced concern was an eye-roll and half-hearted attempts to shoo him away.

"It's because I'm tired, you dimwit," Kageyama hissed as he clambered to his feet, "and I was sorta…"

Whatever he said next trailed off into meaningless mumbling, but Hinata's attention was already diverted by his mission as he abruptly stuck his hands into his pockets and rummaged in them. Instead of shouting at the orange-haired boy, as he normally would, Kageyama simply watched as a frown tugged at his lips. Since his curiosity had quashed the instinctive flare of anger which would normally raise its ugly head at the thought of being ignored, he was willing to watch… but memories of that Nekoma setter's bright eyes, paired with Hinata's entirely non-adorable smile, threatened to make his feet move again.

They would've probably moved, too… or, at least, they would've had he not caught sight of something peculiar in Hinata's triumphant and half-sweaty palms.

"Uhhh, what's that?" Kageyama rather eloquently asked, as his eyes zeroed in on the small black shape nestled in Hinata's palm. "Oi, don't tell me you're going to peg a rock at me or something…"

"I would've pegged it at you if this was actually a pebble…" Hinata mumbled under his breath, but he loudly continued when Kageyama's gaze turned a little too dark for his liking. "But, as luck would have it, this is your birthday present!"

"…My birthday was a week ago, dumbass." If Kageyama had laser vision, Hinata would've probably turned into a scorched puddle at this point… yet the only expression he had on his face was an irritated frown, rather than a look of absolute terror.

"Yeah, well, I know it was a week ago!" Hinata angrily replied. "I was gonna give it to you but then you kept on running away and every time I tried to catch you, you'd run away again and, seriously, how am I supposed to do anything when you keep on running away from me?!"

Kageyama blinked in unconcealed confusion at the vehemence in Hinata's tone but, within seconds, his eyes widen in sudden comprehension. When he'd been busy running from Hinata, he had never thought to look back and see what his team-mate was feeling; he had been pumped with adrenaline and self-loathing and, above all, fear. What else could describe the sensation that washed over him whenever he thought of Hinata's stupidly happy face as he announced something that he didn't want to hear or know about?

…How would he ever be able to face Hinata if he knew that he was with Kenma?

But he never had to worry, it seemed, if Hinata's eyes were anything to go by. Even though he'd been running from him for the past week, and even though he probably deserved to be called an idiot or to receive another ball to the back of his head, the only thing he could see was concern and a smidgen of anger at his stupidity, for not understanding things when he should've. He had been stupid for not seeing things earlier and for causing Hinata trouble; if anything, he'd gone and made a mountain out of a molehill for no particular reason at all.

"Well, I'm glad you know it," Hinata mumbled through the pout forming on his face, and Kageyama almost wished that a hole would open up at his feet when he realized that he'd spoken aloud. "But seriously, stop trying to stare holes into my head and take your damn gift already! My hands are going numb from holding them out for so long…"

"You sure sound grumpy for someone who's trying to give a late birthday present," Kageyama teased, as he finally relieved Hinata of his gift. "A-And, um…"

Kageyama's face turned stormy for a few moments, before his mouth settled between a scowl and an embarrassed pout. "T-Thanks, Hinata. F-F-For the gift."

For a moment, Hinata's mouth threatened to drop down from the utter shock of witnessing Kageyama –the guy who was labelled 'King of the Court' for his narrow-minded stubbornness and who had probably killed children with his scary faux-smiles– thank him for something. It was true that he hadn't exactly been obligated to give his grumpy team-mate a gift and that he hadn't really known about Kageyama's birthday until he'd inadvertently heard a few of his fangirls discussing it (though how they knew about it was a mystery to him), but he'd been steeling himself for some sort of criticism regarding the nature of the gift. So, naturally, it seemed a little strange to see his team-mate regard the gift with a peculiar expression on his face, rather than with loathing or irritation or any other grumpy emotion that the ice-prick had in his limited emotional arsenal.

However, since the world couldn't stay awry for that long, the peculiar expression (that Kageyama would vehemently deny as a great deal of happiness) suddenly dropped to reveal blank shock, and then an eerie lack of emotion. Before Hinata could do anything more than gulp in nervous fright, he found his shoulder being gripped rather harshly as something akin to a devil's attempt at smiling dropped onto Kageyama's face.

"Hinata," Kageyama started, as the ghastly grin continued to linger on his face, "is this the charm that you bought with my money?"

"U-Um, maybe?" Hinata squeaked in response, but the way his eyes darted nervously away was enough to tell Kageyama exactly what he wanted to know, which was why he'd squeezed his team-mate's shoulder a little harder and got the satisfaction of seeing him squirm. "Okay, so it might be the charm that I bought with your money and it might be a little cheesy… b-but I paid you back in the end, didn't I?"

Kageyama was quiet for all about three seconds before all hell broke loose.

And, needless to say, Hinata was lucky to escape with his life intact (though the same could not be said about his composure or a good deal of his sanity).

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"Kageyama," Daichi started, "is there any particular reason why Hinata's not at practice today?"

"He's sick," was Kageyama's quick reply.

"And you don't have any part in his illness, do you? Because you wouldn't be doing anything like, say, clobbering him to within an inch of his life at lunchtime…" At this stage, the smile on Daichi's face was so fake that everyone else had retreated to the other side of the gym (or, better yet, outside the gym's doors), yet Kageyama showed a surprising amount of stoicism as he curtly shook his head in response.

"Well, I guess you wouldn't mind terribly much if I asked you to check up on him, right?" Daichi asked, and it was clear that his order was somewhat unnegotiable. "After all, it would be rather bad for us if our decoy wasn't able to play in our next practice match—"

"Of course, I'll go immediately" Kageyama hurriedly replied and, before Daichi could do anything more than blink, the setter was practically flying out the door, with his cell-phone in hand, as he went off to do his captain's bidding. However, everyone stared after him for a few more moments before they cautiously wandered back inside, where their captain was smiling a lot more normally again.

"Are you sure it was the right idea to ask Kageyama to check up on Hinata?" Sugawara asked in slight concern, as he cast yet another worried gaze out the door. "I mean, I'm quite sure Kageyama was the one that caused Hinata's absence…"

"Nah, I think they'll be fine," Daichi replied warmly, as he scooped up a volleyball lying at his feet and casually tossed it to Sugawara. He hadn't missed the way Hinata had been showing off his 'cute' phone charm for the past number of days –he'd tentatively called it 'cute' because the dark-haired crow had the meanest eyes that he'd ever seen on anything, but had clearly been the source of his kouhai's overly-wide smiles– and he certainly hadn't missed the way a cheerful-looking crow charm had dangled out of Kageyama's hand as he'd sped out, either. Even though he didn't really get why they had such a weird dynamic for the past few days and why he'd gotten a few volleyballs to his face from the hapless duo, there was a nagging suspicion that everything was going to be alright for the two volleyball idiots.

And that, more than anything else, made a faint smile alight on his face as he nodded to himself.

"Yeah, they're going to be just fine…"

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Epilogue

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"Hey, Kageyama!" The bright voice that'd burst out of his phone made Kageyama lurch away from the earpiece with a frustrated growl, but did nothing to deter the hyperactive speaker on the other end. "Meet me at the Foothill store in five minutes, okay? See ya there!"

Before Kageyama could shove a word in edgewise, the insistent dial tone on the other end alerted him to the fact that Hinata had hung up on him, again, and that he would need to be at the store if he wanted to avoid an earful of his team-mate's overly loud voice. With a sigh and the beginnings of a scowl, he tucked his phone into his pocket, before he looked at the phone charm hanging off it with something that definitely wasn't a smile and strode purposefully towards his destination.

"Maaaaan, what took you so long?" Hinata whined, when Kageyama arrived just three minutes after his call. He didn't notice his team-mate's twitching eyebrow or the dark look in his eye as he opened his mouth to voice another complaint, but he certainly felt the fist that none-too-gently whacked his head and almost forced his teeth to clack together rather violently.

"Oww, what was that for?!" Hinata rubbed at his head petulantly and cast an irritated look at his team-mate, but immediately decided to gaze elsewhere when a cold glare met his eyes. "I just wanted you to come and look at something with me, and all you want to do is crack my head…"

Kageyama grumbled under his breath for all about five seconds before he finally relented and stomped into the Foothill Store, with a delighted Hinata at his heels. Before the shorter of the two could crow at his victory, though, he was interrupted by a casual, "So, why did you drag me all the way down here for?"

"Well, you see," Hinata began, as he shyly tucked his hand into Kageyama's larger one and smiled inwardly at the way he'd spluttered and turned a funny shade of pink, "I kinda don't have money right now, and I saw just the thing that I wanted to buy.

"So, since you always have a bit of spare change on you…" Hinata stopped at a set of things that looked uncomfortably familiar to Kageyama, before he turned to his taller team-mate with a winning smile.

"Do you reckon you could lend me five bucks for this cute phone charm I saw just here…?"

Needless to say, Hinata was rejected and got pummeled in the head by Kageyama, before the owner quite happily kicked them out for being noisy brats.

The End :)

[Last Edited/Updated - April 11, 2015]