Souda shifts nervously on Hinata's bed. It's not his first visit, but this time is different.

This time, he's having dinner with Hinata's parents.

"Dude, relax," Hinata says. "They're just people. It's only dinner. You'll be fine."

Souda laughs shakily and adjusts his hat for the billionth time. He pauses, pulls it off his head, and ruffles his hair. Hinata, seeing the pink mess of his boyfriend's head, laughs and walks over. He yanks the black hat out of Souda's hands and puts it back on.

"You look fine, don't worry. Just, y'know, be yourself. They really won't care," Hinata says.

I want them to care about me, Souda thinks. He's never dated anyone before, much less met his friends' parents. Much less a boyfriend's parents. For the first few visits, Hinata had introduced him as "his friend Souda"; then, deciding to take the plunge, it had turned into "his boyfriend Souda". Hinata's parents just paused, smiled, and asked for his first name ("Is it okay if we call you Kazu-kun?" echoes in his head and he gets embarrassed all over again; parental familiarity was – and still is – foreign to him). As carefree and silly as he is around friends, parents make him clam up.

Tearing up – he seriously cannot handle stress in any amount – Souda starts to regret coming over. He looks up when a hand lands on his shoulder unexpectedly.

"You don't have to make them like you. They already like you, 'Kazu-kun'," Hinata says, cracking a smile, and then flinching back and laughing when Souda smacks him on the arm. They're both reaching for the pillows on Hinata's bed – flashbacks to the beginning of their relationship race in their minds – when they hear footsteps outside the door.

"Dinner's ready, boys!" is called out, followed by retreating footsteps. Hinata looks over at Souda, who's gone pale again, and beckons him over with his head. He rubs a reassuring hand on his boyfriend's back.

"Just don't be a tool like usual and you'll be fine."

Hinata's not surprised when he gets another punch on the arm.

A large kotatsu dominates the living room. Hinata's dad is already seated at it; he waves when they enter the room.

"We thought we'd eat here tonight, boys. Hope you don't mind the tight squeeze," he says, smiling easily. "Hajime, why don't you sit here?"

He points at the spot beside him; Hinata spares a second-long glance at Souda, shrugs, and plops onto the floor, tucking his long legs under the kotatsu blanket. Now left stranded in the middle of the room, Souda starts to sweat a bit. Is he supposed to join them uninvited? He can't seem to remember how to move his legs, and accepts his fate of being rooted to the Hinata's carpet for the rest of time.

Souda jolts when Hinata's dad starts laughing quietly and he looks up to see a grin stretched across the man's face, covered slightly by his hand. He's beckoning with his other hand and pointing at the spot across the table from Hinata; Souda's knees buckle before he walks over and stiffly sits, pointedly not making eye contact with anyone. At the same moment, Hinata's mum walks over carrying stacks of dishes and places them on the tabletop.

"Oh, Hajime, could you help me bring the rest in?" she asks. Hinata complies, following her into the kitchen and chatting quietly. The clock ticks, magnifying the silence between the two left at the table, and Souda's eyes are burning holes in the floor. Hinata's dad clears his throat.

"You can relax, you know," he says softly. "We're not going to eat you. We've already got a dinner prepared, and fortunately you're not on the menu."

Souda laughs at the joke, admittedly a little too loudly, but it helps. They're just people, he reminds himself. Managing a smile, he looks up to see Hinata's dad smiling back at him.

"Y'know, Kazu-kun, when Hajime announced you two were dating, we didn't really know what to do," he starts. "But his mum and I.. we're happy it's you. Take care of him, okay?"

Trying not to gape, Souda starts to speak, but he can't get the words out. Instead, he just nods. Throat tight, he tries to ignore the overwhelming warmth he's feeling and takes to staring at the floor again. He wonders if this is how parents are supposed to feel.

Footsteps on the floor interrupt his thoughts; Hinata and his mum enter the room again, arms laden with dishes. They settle down at the kotatsu, Hinata's mum sitting beside Souda, Hinata across from him. He makes an effort to stop trembling.

While they pass around the plates and chopsticks, Souda thinks about the dining table at his own house. He can't remember the last time he actually sat down with his dad at the table and had a meal together; the surface is constantly piled high with tools and projects, and one of the chairs wobbles. They usually just eat on the couch in front of the T.V., or Souda takes his plate to his room. He's unused to this family closeness, but he doesn't dislike it. He's just unsure of his place within it all.

Conversation starts up about how everyone's day went as the meal goes on. Souda doesn't contribute much, but he enjoys listening to them all talk in between bites of food, the chatter lighthearted and pleasant. It isn't until he asks, "Hinata, could you please pass that dish?" and three hands reach out to help that he realises the problem.

"We're kind of, you know, all 'Hinata' here," Hinata's dad says, with a twinkle in his eye.

"Kazu-kun, you should call him by his first name so we don't all keep getting confused," Hinata's mum says. "Hinata this, Hinata that, it's a bit hard for us to tell who you mean."

Souda struggles internally between his embarrassment from using first names and his desire to be liked by his boyfriend's parents. Finally, he stammers out a shaky, "H-Hajime, could you p-pass that?"

Cheeks flushing slightly, Hinata passes the dish, being very careful not to touch Souda in the process. The conversation picks back up between his parents, but the two remain quiet, eating slowly and not making eye contact. Hinata's parents don't seem to notice the sudden reservedness of the boys.

They do, however, notice when Souda jumps violently for seemingly no reason.

He recovers quickly and reassures them he's fine to get the concerned looks off their faces, claiming it was just a shiver, but nothing can hide the red blush creeping up his neck. He stealthily reaches under the table and pushes Hinata's foot off his thigh, where it had been moving ever higher and startled him in doing so. Souda shoots a glare at his boyfriend. Way t'make me look like a damn idiot.. he thinks, hoping the message got through.

But Hinata moves his foot back and winks almost imperceptibly across the table. "Don't worry," he mouths, and puts rice in his mouth to cover up the silent words. Souda stares at him for another minute, unsure of what he's up to, but starts eating again after nothing else happens.

The topic turns to his dad's profession; eager to have a less embarrassing exchange, Souda tells Hinata's mum about the repair shop they run. She seems genuinely interested in the business, and relief floods him when he realises he's finally talking normally. He's about to tell her about how he helps out most weekends when he feels something being pressed against his groin and stops in the middle of his sentence.

Hinata's pushing with his foot under the kotatsu, clearly trying – and succeeding – to get a reaction from his boyfriend. He's showing nothing in his expression, and even turns to talk to his father while doing it, leaving no impression that anything out of the ordinary is happening out of sight. Souda decides to ignore the situation, going back to the conversation with Hinata's mum. She looks more than a little concerned. He mumbles a short answer to wrap it up, shoving food in his mouth so he won't have to talk more.

Positive that this is the longest dinner to ever exist, he holds back a groan when he feels himself start to get hard from Hinata's attention. Not a good groan, more like a "why is this happening to me" groan; a groan of utter resignation to the situation at hand – or, well, foot. A shiver runs down his back despite the heat from the kotatsu.

Hinata shows no sign of letting up. They're more than halfway through dinner, but Souda can't stop wishing it was over already. He hasn't said more than two words to his boyfriend, or anyone else at the table, since Hinata had started; he doesn't know what sound might escape if he opens his mouth. Souda can't deny it any longer: he's ridiculously turned on. Already given up on the rest of his dinner – he hadn't had much of an appetite to begin with anyway – he focuses solely on not giving anything away, and absently listens to the mindless babble going on. He never thought he'd enjoy being fondled by someone's foot, yet here he is, not particularly hating it. Souda's hips move forward involuntarily as Hinata's rubs harder than before and he chokes back a small noise.

"Are you okay, Kazu-kun?" Hinata's mum asks him, worry furrowing her brows. She looks at him closely, searching his face. He jumps at her words.

Shit shit shit. He's sure she's noticing the abnormal flush of his cheeks and the way he's shaking slightly, but he still nods his head and mumbles, "I'm fine, yeah."

He can't bring himself to look into his boyfriend's mother's eyes while said boyfriend is trying his hardest to get him off. He doesn't hate himself that much.

"Alright, well, just let me know if you need anything," she says. Souda forces a smile onto his face that falters when Hinata doubles his efforts at that moment.

What timing, Souda thinks angrily. Bastard's doin' this on purpose!

His hands are clenched on the floor, knuckles white, hoping to whatever god there is that Hinata stops before he gets off; Souda can't think of anything more embarrassing than orgasming at the dinner table. He's unaware of any conversation at this point, whether it's directed toward him or not. All he can focus on is the unrelenting moving pressure against his dick; the fact that they're in public; that it's Hinata of all people. He wonders vaguely if Hinata had planned this from the beginning.

Souda's doing his best to stay still and not draw attention to himself, but it's getting harder every second to hold back. Rocking back and forth the tiniest bit, getting as much friction as he can from Hinata, he can't keep himself from shivering every few seconds. Hinata's looking at him more frequently now, a smug look on his face. Out of nowhere, he pulls his foot away completely. Souda's head snaps up.

"Hey, watch where you're putting your legs," his dad says; evidently Hinata hadn't been as sneaky removing his foot as he had thought. The lack of space under the kotatsu doesn't offer much extra room to move around in; frankly, Souda's surprised no one noticed before.

"Sorry, Dad. I'll be more careful next time," Hinata replies easily, looking at Souda out of the corner of his eye. Souda stares back. Next time...?

After a few minutes with no resumption of the under-the-table activities, Souda starts to relax again; that is, until he feels the telltale pressure back with no lead up. His hand slips off the table and smacks onto the floor and he stares, open-mouthed, at Hinata, who's finally looking back at him. The eye contact sends a jolt right to his groin, but he can't look away now. The heat is mounting low in his groin and he can tell he's close. Hinata presses again, hard, smirks, and mouths, "Kazuichi" –

– and Souda can taste blood in his mouth from where he's biting down to keep from shouting as he comes right there at the table, bent over to hide his face, doing his utmost not to arch his back or move his hips. Unfortunately, Hinata's parents still noticed his unnatural movements.

"H-H-Hajime," he croaks out before he can stop himself. They're all staring at him now; his face completely red, he feels a wet spot spreading on his boxers and through his pants and he has no clue how he's going to get up from the kotatsu (though he's immensely glad that at least he hadn't worn his jumpsuit today).

"Here, you dropped this," Hinata says, picking up a chopstick from the floor in an attempt to give reason to Souda's words.

"Thanks," Souda mutters, taking the chopstick with trembling hands. The looks from Hinata's parents are burning into him. "...'m fine, don't worry. Just – er – stomachache."

He knows it's a weak excuse, but luckily the two accept the explanation without any fuss. For the first time, he notices that they had all finished dinner while he was otherwise occupied, and Hinata's mum is getting up to clear off the table; his dad stands up to help as well, leaving the boys at the table. Hinata scoots around to sit beside Souda when they hear the retreating footsteps. He laces his fingers with his boyfriend's and smiles innocently at him.

"You fuckin' bastard," is all Souda can say, but there's no real malice behind his voice, just embarrassment. "Bet your parents really love me now."

Hinata laughs. "Don't worry, they won't realise anything. You're their precious Kazu-kun, after all. Well, and mine too, I guess."

He's really not surprised when he gets smacked for the third time that day.