"What th' hell are you doing?"

Hinata looked torn between anxiety and illness as he clutched his stomach and stared down Kageyama. He did not respond, and kept his eyes locked on Kageyama, unmoving and glittering like chips of amber. The agitation was clear on Hinata's face, as he began summoning courage from what he hoped was a deep, deep well of it.

"Stop being creepy, dumbass," Kageyama said and turned around.

"Wait!"

The setter's short temper snapped and he spun around.

"What is it?" he snapped.

"T0-to-to-to-Tobio-k-kun! Can we practice z-zero tempo again? A-Af-After practice?"

To his immense surprise, there was no volcanic eruption of killing intent, and the devil decided to not possess Kageyama's face after all. Instead, he gave Hinata a patronizing look of pity. It made Hinata's anxiety vanish like mist in a windy plain, and instead he was gripped with the strong urge to knee Kageyama in the balls.

"What're you getting all worked up for, dumbass? Do you wanna ask the captain if we can have the gym a bit longer, Sh-S-Shou-Shoouuuuu-Shoo-Shouyou-kun!" he strained. As he spoke, he features became more and more grotesque, and Hinata silently backed away further and further.

"Hm? Hinata, why are you back here? I thought you wanted to ask Kageyama some- holy shit."

Azumane paled as Hinata pointed a shaking finger at Kageyama.

"Captain! Captain!" he called, his voice becoming shrill for such a large high schooler. Sawamura ambled over to Azumane's cries, curious, yet cautious.

"What is it?"

"K-Kageyama!"

He towards the other side of the gym and sighed.

"What did you do this time, Hinata?"

"I didn't to anything to To-To-Tobio-kun!"

Hinata avoided his captain's gaze as he examined the burst capillaries and callouses on his palms. His fidgeting revealed his nervousness, and the fluff-ball he had for hair was charged with static electricity. It was clear to Sawamura that Hinata was afraid that he may have offended Kageyama and had accidently called down a hellish retribution upon himself. Well, it was his job as captain to clear up misunderstandings like this.

"Don't worry, Hinata, Kageyama's not mad - at least I think he's not. Look at his face, he's bright red. Kageyama! Get over here! And lose the face! You're scaring the crap out of everyone!"

To everyone's shock, Kageyama shuffled over, and really did lose a bit of the face.

"Did you too want to ask me something?"

"Can me and... me and "Shouyou", use the gym longer? We wanna practice zero tempo," he said. He face was still red. He gave Hinata an awkward side-glance and looked away when Hinata flinched.

"Sorry," he muttered. He actually did seem apologetic to Hinata.

"What?"

"I said I'm sorry!"

"For what?"

"For scaring you!"

Now Hinata was the one who felt guilty.

"No, no, I'm fine now," he mumbled back, equally uncomfortable.

"You guys are pathetic. Cap' where're the keys?"

"Hey! Tanaka, don't just take them! Anyway, you two have permission to use the gym for a bit longer, and lock up when you're done, okay? We usually don't let first years hang onto the keys like that, so you guys better open up the gym yourselves first thing in the morning. Or else."

The two swallowed hard, and bobbed their heads up and down. As everyone filtered out of the gym, they silently stood side by side.

"To-Tobio-kun?"

"What is it, Hin-Shouyou-kun?"

"Thanks for letting me call you by your first name."

"Same here. As long as you don't take the honorific off right away, I'm good."

"Same here."