Okay... so it took a while for me to be able to actually get back to this (I've dropped out of this pairing/series a little, and I'm currently pretty deeply into another pairing/series... so... I'm sorry if this seems... Idk, bad?) but I couldn't just abandon you guys, I mean you gave me so much feedback and encouraging words... and so I'm back...

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The rest of the day kageyama avoided all the places he knew Hinata frequented, in order to check if the pills had some sort of fault connected to time. He genuinely believed that the pills had some sort of malfunction. The fact that both of the only two people that had tried the pills (that he knew of) had their clock stop after nearly the same amount of time was too much of a coincidence.

Kageyama never really considered the possibility that he might meet his soulmate before he was finished with school, in fact, he had thought that he was going to meet his soulmate for the first time much later in life. He never really had time for romantic relations, or other relations for that matter, all he really had time for was volleyball. He figured that he'd check his clock when he was done with his schooling, and then start thinking about soulmates and stuff like that.

Or that's what he had initially thought...

And besides...

Hinata couldn't really be his soulmate, right?

Hinata was... well, Hinata. He was a goofy teenager that gave it his all during their matches and training. He was easily excited and riled up, and just as easily frightened and had a really weak stomach at times. He had his heart on display, always showing everyone how he felt at all times. Hinata was a force of nature that nobody could sway away from what he had set his eyes on, but at the same time a really warm and comfortable person that was easy to get to know, easy to befriend. He also rivalled Kageyama's own intense love for volleyball.

Hinata was, he was...

He was a teammate, the first teammate Kageyama had become friends with, actually... The first person that felt like a real teammate to Kageyama, the first person that had considered him a real teammate too... a friend...

The first person Kageyama actually wanted to be close to.

But if Hinata really was his soulmate then... that would change everything.

Would they still be friends? Would things suddenly become more awkward? Was Hinata going to stop acting the way he usually does around Kageyama?

Kageyama decided that Hinata couldn't be his soulmate, because that could endanger their current relationship, it could change it, maybe even break it. The relationship he had with Hinata was too precious to Kageyama for him to let it be ruined by something like this.

So Hinata couldn't be his soulmate.

Besides, Kageyama didn't harbour those kinds of feeling for Hinata. Or well, at least he didn't think he did, again, he never really gave it much thought.

Hinata was just a teammate, a friend, right? Kageyama didn't think there was more to it than that, but...

Hinata wasn't just a regular friend either, now that he thought about it. Because Hinata was... he felt closer to Hinata than any of his other teammates/friends.

Hinata was...

He didn't even know what Hinata was to him anymore, and he didn't want to think about it.

So he stopped and started focusing on checking in on his clock frequently to see if it'd stop again when Hinata wasn't around.

He didn't want to see Hinata again yet, because he wanted to be completely sure that it was a malfunction and not the certain end of their friendship. A friendship that Kageyama had just realised meant the world to him, that had become a grounding stability in his life.

Kageyama knew that he couldn't avoid Hinata forever though, he knew that they'd meet at practice. And school was nearly over... Kageyama started feeling panicked, he just couldn't see Hinata yet, couldn't meet him. What if the clock actually didn't malfunction? What if Hinata really was his soulmate? Kageyama couldn't deal with this, not now, probably not ever...

So Kageyama made up his mind to do the unthinkable...

He was going to skip practice.

Just this once... That would give him more time to test his theory, and that would give him more time to think things through, to come up with a plan on how to save their relat- Friendship... to save their Friendship... Kageyama would go over all the details over the weekend, and then come up with a plan, and if his clock actually... if on monday his clock went from one to zero when he saw Hinata again, then he'd have a plan to fix things, to make everything alright.

Or so he hoped...

And so Kageyama actually skipped practice for the first time in his life (for Hinata's sake, his mind subtly added), and went home.

During the entire walk home Kageyama thought about his current problems, and he never stopped thinking. Not during dinner, not during the rest of the day, Kageyama even got less sleep than usual because he was thinking too much. He started thinking about it when he woke up, and he continued to think about it during the entire day. It felt like time was flowing by too quickly for Kageyama, he just didn't have enough time, he needed more.

And so when the next day came, and it was time for Kageyama to go to school, he called in sick...

And yes, Kageyama was aware that he had said only once, but he just needed a little more time to think things through. Just one more day.

Kageyama spent the entire day thinking about his problems, but still couldn't get anywhere. There just didn't seem like he could come up with a way for them to be soulmates and keep their friendship, and he couldn't deal with that, he couldn't deal with losing Hinata.

Kageyama was so deeply in thought that he nearly didn't notice the sound of the doorbell. That was weird, probably just his father that forgot to bring his keys again. Kageyama saw his father's keys in the bowl by the door and sighed. When was his father going to stop forgetting his keys?

Kageyama was so sure that it had been his father that he opened the front door without even looking at the person behind the door.

"Hey..." Kageyama heard a hesitant voice say, and he felt himself freeze up when he realised who that voice belonged to. He slowly turned around and sure enough there he was, what was Hinata doing here?

Kageyama's head was a mess that couldn't form any kind of coherent sentence at the moment, so he ended up awkwardly standing there in front of the doorway, staring at Hinata. That was until he remembered the clock. He wasn't really all that surprised to find that it had gone back down to zero, and he felt something drop in his stomach.

Hinata really was his soulmate...

And Kageyama's panicked mind supplied that this could only mean that everything they had up until that moment was going to crumble and fall apart.

"Kageyama? Hey, are you alright?" Hinata asked when he didn't get any other reaction from the other teen.

"I, yeah, no I'm... don't know..." Kageyama said, cursing his brain for not being able to talk properly. He shook himself out of his dazed and current mess of a head, before he continued. "What are you doing here Hinata?"

"I came to check on you... and I came to..." Hinata started, but he seemed to ponder how to word his next words as if they could change the fate of the world. After Hinata had been looking at the ground for what seemed like an eternity for Kageyama, the shorter teen looked up and directly into Kageyama's eyes.

"I came to tell you that we can forget about the whole soulmate thing, and just pretend it never happened, just... just don't skip practice..." Hinata said with a determination that definitively reached his eyes, just like all the emotions Hinata displayed. After a little while his eyes softened as he said a small please.

"I... okay" Kageyama said slowly, not really processing what he had agreed to.

"Okay... okay, great! See you at practice tomorrow!" Hinata said hurriedly before turning around and sprinting away from Kageyama's house, probably to go home.

Kageyama wouldn't truly have what had happened entirely processed before he was making his way to school the next day.

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So... as I said, I'm currently not that invested in this fandom... and so if you guys want me to continue this/finish it (even though the way I write this will probably change a lot), then I need constant reassurance that you want it... because I need to know that people still want more, even if my way of writing this changes, even if I'll probably make some mistakes because I won't remember certain things...

So yeah...

Tell me if you want me to continue this or not (and it really isn't that much of a bother for me to continue it, I mean this chapter took me like no time at all to write... it's just that it takes a little out of me to actually make myself start something/start doing something...)