This is one of the three prompts inspired by my friend! I hope you like it!
"Hey, guys," Sugawara says softly, peeking in through the clubroom's door. Kageyama, Tsukishima, Yamaguchi, and Hinata were seated on the floor, heads bent and speaking in low voices over papers that were smudged with erasure marks.
"You got this totally wrong. Are you stupid?" Tsukishima berates, giving Kageyama a bland look.
"I'm not stupid, you're just a bad tutor!" Kageyama protests disdainfully.
"Says the dumbass," Hinata says lowly, sounding smug. Yamaguchi bops him on the head, not too hard, but just enough to get the message of 'knock it off and do your homework' across. Coincidentally, this small bop causes Yamaguchi's eyes to stray upwards, seeing Sugawara as he peeks in.
"Oh, hi Sugawara!" he says, smiling a little at the co-captain. The greeting catches the other three's attention, all of them snapping up and looking towards the door. Sugawara sighs in relief; he really didn't want to catch their attention any other way.
"Hey," Sugawara repeats again. "I'm really sorry for bothering you guys, but I have to lock up and I'm sure that the four of you don't want to be stuck in here all night."
"Where's Daichi?" Tsukishima asks, getting up almost immediately off the floor and stretching a little.
"He just left. He told me he had something to take care of at home, so I'm locking up for him tonight," Sugawara explains, smiling at them.
"Awwww! But I have a test tomorrow, and I'm going to fail if I don't study more!" Hinata whines loudly, flopping onto his back and sending his papers skittering around him.
"Maybe you should have started studying earlier," Tsukishima says, grabbing his backpack and starting to walk out.
"Nice one, Tsukki," Yamaguchi snickers, grabbing his things too. He stops in front of the door as he walks out, turns around to Kageyama and Hinata, bows and tells them goodnight, before following Tsukishima out.
"I guess you could just… come over to my house and get it done there," Kageyama offers, shrugging it off.
"Ooooh, you're actually inviting me over?" Hinata asks, sounding a bit stunned. "Wait, that won't help much! You're stupider than me!" He complains, pointing an accusing finger at the taller boy as he sits up.
"Who are you calling stupid, dumbass?!"
"Well, I'm sure with the two of you working together, you're bound to get the right answers," Sugawara reasons. "Two brains are better than one, right?"
"I guess…"
"Maybe…" Hinata says, almost like he's considering it. "Hey! Do you have food?"
"At my house?" Kageyama muses. Hinata nods. Kageyama rolls his eyes. "Yeah, I do, dumbass. Are you coming or not?" he demands, gathering up his things and putting his bag over his shoulder.
"Alright, alright!" Hinata says, gathering up his scattered papers and shoving them in his backpack haphazardly. Despite all the movement, Sugawara could see the slight tinge of red on Hinata's cheeks. He couldn't help but chuckle.
A minute later, Kageyama and Hinata both bowed and said goodnight to Sugawara, who bid them goodnight as well while locking up the clubroom. The two of them raced down the stairs, and Kageyama waited for Hinata to grab his bike before going on their way.
Sugawara watched them for a second, and couldn't help but smile.
When they got to Kageyama's house, the setter had to practically sit the ball of orange energy down so he could stop hanging off his arm long enough in order for him to unlock the door. After that, Hinata darted into the house, took off his shoes in record time, and took three steps deeper into the house before bowing deeply and bellowing, "Sorry for the intrusion!"
"No one's home, dumbass," Kageyama said, shutting the door behind them as he, too, slipped off his shoes.
"What?" Hinata asked, snapping back up to full height (which wasn't very high, Kageyama noted smugly) and looking at Kageyama with an almost-tragic look on his face. "You mean that you would have been home alone if I wasn't here?" he asks, his voice high and innocent.
"No shit. I just told you no one was home," Kageyama says, walking past him and heading to the kitchen. Hinata followed him like a lost puppy, the tragedy of the situation diminished, and he was back to his usually-bouncy self.
"You should invite me over more often, then," he says, and Kageyama has to freeze and look at him in confusion. "No one deserves to be all alone, dumbass," he says, "not even you." He adds that as a last resort and sends him a smile. Kageyama rolls his eyes at him. "So! What's for dinner?"
"Ramen," Kageyama answers dully.
"WHAT?" Hinata yells, so loud that Kageyama is sure that some windows shattered. "You said there was food!"
"Ramen is food, idiot."
"Not GOOD food!"
"Do you want some or not?"
"…Yes, please…"
A couple minutes later, they're sitting in the living room, homework spread out in front of them and bowls of ramen in their hands. The homework, however, is neglected as the two of them race to see who can eat their dinner the fastest. The plan backfires when Kageyama burns the roof of his mouth, and Hinata makes sure he's okay before convulsing into a fit of uncontrollable laughter.
"The King was assassinated by a couple of noodles!" he howls.
"Don't call me that, dumbass!" Kageyama says, his words a little slurred, as he prods Hinata's stomach in retaliation. Hinata only laughs louder, squirming away from Kageyama's fingers. "And I wasn't assassinated," Kageyama says bitterly, although there is a sort of triumphant air in his voice as he watches Hinata try to get his breath back from laughing so hard.
"Yes you were, and it was funny as hell," Hinata says, finishing off his noodles before putting the bowl aside. Then, all forms of homework and studying forgotten, he flops down onto the floor and props his legs up on the couch behind them.
"What the hell are you doing, dumbass? You're going to get sick," Kageyama chastises lightly, more confused about the smaller boy's actions than anything else.
"I'll be fine, Bakayama. Now turn on the T.V.," Hinata says, pointing at the T.V. across from them. Kageyama huffs, before complying and then channel surfing until Hinata tells him to stop on this really, really weird-looking cartoon.
At first, it's not that bad. Kageyama thinks nothing's out of the normal, because the two of them have been to each other's houses before, and this shouldn't be weird. But now, he's rethinking that, because they're just sitting here with some kind of tension or awkwardness around them, and Kageyama doesn't know why.
Hinata's still laying down on the floor with his feet up, and Kageyama's sitting next to him, his knees pulled up towards his chest as he squints at the colorful scenes on the screen. He looks down and to his side every so often, watching Hinata's face as he watches the cartoon upside-down. But, this last time, he's not watching the screen; instead, it's almost like he was waiting for Kageyama to glance at him.
"Question," Hinata says, his feet wiggling on the couch as he smiles smallishly up at Kageyama.
"What?" he asks in reply, giving him an expectant look.
"What would you say if… if…" Hinata starts to ask, but it's like he loses heart halfway through, his resolve crumbling and his gaze falling away.
"If what?" Kageyama prompts, a little irritated. "If you want to ask me something, then just spit it out!" he says, and he feels kind of bad for not checking the words before they come out of his mouth.
"What would you say if I told you I liked you?" Hinata asks, talking about just as fast as their quick, making Kageyama blink and wonder if he heard that right.
"W-What-? What are-?" he stutters, but Hinata's already launching into his next rambling.
"It's just a hypothetical question, sort of, because I've been looking at you a little too long, and you don't look as half as bad as I originally thought you did, and then I realized that I kind of like spending time with you, like practicing and stuff, like now, and I was just wondering what your reaction would be because I didn't know if I should be liking you at all-" the smaller boy says as he rolls and swings his legs off the couch so that he's sitting up and is a little farther away from Kageyama. He's holding himself as he rambles on, and he looks as small as ever.
"HINATA, SHUT UP! I CANT UNDERSTAND YOU, DUMBASS!" Kageyama shouts, loud enough to shock Hinata out of his lecture. Said boy looks up at him, an apprehensive look in his eyes as he does so, and it takes Kageyama by surprise. There's a minute of silence before there's words coming out of Kageyama's mouth again. "I didn't know you were gay," he mumbles.
"I'm not! And that's not the point!" Hinata protests immediately, his nervousness coming out as anger.
"What do you mean, 'that's not the point?' You just told me you liked me!" Kageyama argues.
"I asked how you would react if I told you that I did! And even if I did like you, that doesn't mean I'm gay!"
"You're such a dumbass! I'm a boy, aren't I? A boy liking another boy, that's called-"
"SHUT UP AND ANSWER MY QUESTION, DUMBASS!" Hinata yells.
"I WOULD TELL YOU THAT I MIGHT LIKE YOU TOO AND GIVE ME A DAY TO THINK ABOUT IT. HAPPY?" Kageyama shouts back, and the two of them realize that they were too close; in the heat of their argument, they stood up on their knees and got into each other's faces. The two of them moved away with a huff, their faces red from either the subject matter or all the shouting they just did.
"So you would think about it?" Hinata says quietly, breaking the silence.
"I would have to think about what to say, yeah," Kageyama mutters.
"Good or bad?"
"Good, dumbass."
"What?"
"What?"
"So you-?"
"What do you mean, you're not gay?" Kageyama asks before Hinata can get his question worded properly. Hinata shuts his mouth, his voice dying in his throat. He tries to speak a couple more times before he balls up his fists and looks at the floor.
"I mean… I only like you," he says after a second. "I haven't really felt anything for any other guy like this, so I don't think… I don't know. Maybe. But I don't… like labels," he finishes lamely.
"Labels?" Kageyama asks, tilting his head to the side a little bit.
"You know… short, tall, gay, straight, dumb, smart, sick, wrong… things like that. Things that people hear and automatically judge you for it. It makes me so mad!" Hinata says, his voice rising to a shout at the end of his mini-rant.
"Oh…"
"Yeah," he agrees. "I don't know if I like guys, in general, but I know I like you, so…"
"I'm not good with words," Kageyama spits out, not liking the atmosphere they found themselves in. It's… suddenly, it's like everything is stuffy, like someone put in a fireplace, lit a fire, but didn't think to add a chimney to vent it out.
"What?"
"That's why I don't have a lot of friends or people I hang out with, because I don't know what to say and when to say it," Kageyama explains. "So I'm not really sure what to say right now…"
"It's fine, I'll just go-"
"THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEANT!" Kageyama yells, stopping Hinata from getting up and walking out by grabbing his wrist. "I don't know how to say I like you back without sounding stupid!"
"Well, you didn't sound very stupid right there, now did you?" Hinata says smugly after a second, settling back onto the floor with a little grin on his face.
"Dumbass…" Kageyama mutters.
"You said it," Hinata says.
"That's not the point."
"Huh?"
"So, we like each other," Kageyama says, faking thoughtfulness.
"Yeah," Hinata says, awkwardness faint in his voice. Kageyama nods, and suddenly the air is a lot less stuffy despite the fact that it's a lot quieter than it was a couple seconds ago.
Kageyama nearly flinches when he feels something brush his hand, but then something warm threads between his fingers and he smiles a little. He looks down at their hands, their fingers intertwined and his basically swallowing up Hinata's, before looking back to the T.V. to watch that stupid cartoon Hinata liked.
Thanks for reading! I hope you liked it!
Please Review!
I love you! I hope you have a good day!
-HB
