Chapter Text
Kageyama Tobio finished her assignment early.
This was not unusual. Kageyama finished most things early because unfinished work sat in her head like an object placed crookedly on a shelf. It bothered her until she fixed it. The fact that this particular assignment happened to be the one standing between her and Hinata’s ridiculous request to watch soccer practice was, unfortunately, irrelevant. She had not finished it because she wanted to go. She had finished it because the assignment existed, and things that existed needed to be dealt with properly.
That was the explanation she gave herself while standing in front of her dormitory room mirror on Friday afternoon in her usual casual clothes; a dusty rose oversized T-shirt tucked into a white midi floral skirt with sneakers practical enough for walking across half the university. Her hair was gathered in a loose bun, and her face carried the flat seriousness of someone preparing for a dental appointment rather than an outdoor practice session.
Her phone buzzed on her desk.
Hinata’s message appeared with three exclamation marks, two soccer ball emojis, and a small orange bird sticker that looked disturbingly like her, TOBIO ARE YOU COMING???
Kageyama looked at the message, then at her finished assignment on the desk, then at the window where the late afternoon light had begun turning gold across campus.
She typed, I said I would if I finished.
Hinata replied so quickly Kageyama suspected she had been waiting with both thumbs hovering over the screen, SO YOU FINISHED???
Kageyama stared at the phone for three silent seconds, expression unmoving, Yes.
The next reply was just a long row of exclamation marks.
Kageyama locked her phone and put it into her bag with the grim patience of a person accepting punishment she had technically agreed to. She did not dislike soccer. She understood the basic rules well enough from overhearing Isagi talk after class, though he had once explained offside with such careful enthusiasm that Kageyama had become mildly offended on behalf of geometry. Soccer was fine. Practice was fine. Watching people run after a ball was not inherently offensive.
The problem was Hinata.
Hinata had said she wanted to see the tall guy who called people peasants. She had also said she wanted to see Isagi play, though she had tried to bury that part inside three other reasons, as if Kageyama would not notice. Hinata was a terrible liar because she believed sincerity was a universal solvent. Her face lit up before her mouth decided whether to hide something.
Kageyama found this annoying.
Not because it mattered.
Because it was obvious.
By the time Kageyama reached the campus field, Hinata was already waiting near the fence, bouncing lightly on the balls of her feet with a plastic bag from the convenience store hanging from one wrist. She wore a bright cardigan over a simple top, her orange hair catching the sunlight in a way that made her look almost unfairly visible. People noticed Hinata the way they noticed birds landing on a windowsill: suddenly, fondly, and without deciding to.
“Tobio!” Hinata called, waving both arms with enough force to threaten the snacks in her bag. Her face opened into immediate relief when Kageyama approached, as if there had been a realistic chance Kageyama would evaporate between the dormitory and the field. “You came!”
Kageyama stopped beside her and adjusted the strap of her tote. “I said I would,” she answered, her voice even and vaguely offended by Hinata’s surprise. “I don’t usually lie.”
Hinata tilted her head, eyes bright with teasing but soft around the edges. “You say that, but you also said you weren’t interested,” she replied, swinging the convenience store bag slightly while watching Kageyama’s expression with undisguised curiosity. “That was maybe not a lie, but it was suspicious.”
“It’s soccer practice,” Kageyama said, looking through the fence toward the field because Hinata’s face was too pleased. “Being interested would be strange.”
Hinata hummed in a way that suggested she had heard the words and rejected their contents. “You brought your notebook,” she said, pointing at Kageyama’s tote bag with a smile spreading across her face. “That’s not normal for someone who isn’t interested.”
Kageyama’s hand tightened slightly around the strap. “The assignment for Monday might need corrections,” she said, tone firm enough to build a wall with. “I brought it because waiting without doing anything is inefficient.”
Hinata’s smile became unbearable. Kageyama looked away first, because in battles of emotional persistence, Hinata was the kind of opponent who won by not understanding there was a fight.
The soccer field was already alive. Players in dark training shirts moved across the grass in pairs and clusters, their shouts cutting through the warm air with the loose roughness of men who had spent too much time together. Cones marked drills near one side. Water bottles lined the bench. A few students had gathered near the fence to watch, though most seemed to be friends, club assistants, or people waiting for someone after practice.
Kageyama’s eyes found Isagi before she meant to.
He was near midfield, tying his cleats with one foot propped on a ball while listening to a red-haired player say something with elegant irritation. Isagi’s expression was focused but approachable, his hair slightly messy from the breeze, his posture relaxed until the coach called something from the sideline. Then his head lifted quickly, attention snapping toward the field like someone had turned a key in him.
That was familiar. Kageyama had seen the classroom version of that look when a professor said something important. She had seen the cafeteria version when Isagi noticed the shortest path through a crowd. She had not seen the field version yet.
It suited him more than she expected.
Hinata followed Kageyama’s gaze instantly and made a small sound beside her, soft enough that anyone else might have missed it. Kageyama did not miss it because Hinata made quiet noises only when something had landed directly in her chest.
“He looks different when he’s playing,” Hinata said, voice lower than usual, her fingers curling around the fence as she leaned forward. Her expression was openly curious, not yet romantic in a way she understood, but fascinated enough to be dangerous. "Not scary. Just… sharper."
Kageyama looked at her. Hinata did not notice because she was watching Isagi.
Something small and unpleasant pressed behind Kageyama’s ribs. It was not pain, nor jealousy. Jealousy was too dramatic, and Kageyama refused to assign herself a dramatic feeling without evidence. This was closer to noticing that someone had moved her chair two centimeters to the left. The room still worked. Nothing had collapsed. But the placement was wrong enough to irritate her every time she looked.
“He’s always like that when he focuses,” Kageyama said, and the sentence came out before she decided whether it needed to exist.
Hinata turned to her with interest. “You noticed that?” she asked, not teasing this time, just genuinely curious, her face bright with the kind of attention that made Kageyama feel suddenly examined.
Kageyama looked back at the field. “He sits beside me in class,” she replied, voice controlled and practical. “Obviously I’ve seen him focus.”
Hinata nodded slowly, but her gaze flicked from Kageyama to Isagi and back again with an expression that was almost too thoughtful for comfort. “Right,” she said, drawing the word out gently as if filing it somewhere important. “You see him a lot.”
Kageyama decided the conversation was finished and took one step closer to the fence.
Unfortunately, the universe did not respect her decisions.
A ball rolled toward them with unexpected speed, slipping past the sideline after a missed pass. Hinata made a startled sound and hopped backward. Kageyama’s foot moved before her thoughts did, stopping the ball neatly under her sneaker. She looked down at it, then up at the field with the mild annoyance of someone whose personal space had been invaded by sports equipment.
“Sorry!” Isagi called, already jogging toward them. His face relaxed with recognition the moment he saw who had stopped the ball. “Kageyama, nice trap.”
Kageyama nudged the ball back through the gap near the fence with controlled precision. “It was rolling slowly,” she said, tone blunt enough to sand down the compliment.
“It really wasn’t,” Isagi replied, laughing lightly as he caught it with the inside of his foot. His eyes moved from her to Hinata, and the shift happened so naturally that Kageyama almost hated herself for seeing it. “Hinata, you came too?”
Hinata’s hands tightened around the convenience store bag, and she stood straighter as if she had been called on in class. “Yeah,” she said, smiling with the kind of honest excitement that made subtlety give up and leave. “Tobio finished her assignment early, so I dragged her here. Well, I asked. She came by herself. But I emotionally dragged her.”
Isagi grinned, and the expression made his whole face look younger and more open. “That sounds accurate,” he said, glancing at Kageyama with familiar amusement before his attention returned to Hinata. “Practice might be boring to watch, though. We’re mostly doing drills today.”
Hinata shook her head so quickly that a strand of orange hair slipped across her cheek. “No, I like watching people practice,” she said, leaning slightly toward the fence as if the words mattered more than casual interest. “It’s interesting when everyone moves with a purpose. Even if I don’t understand everything, I like seeing how people choose where to go.”
Isagi’s expression changed. Kageyama saw it, again.
It was not romantic, more recognition. Isagi had been listened to properly by someone who did not need to know the technical details to understand that movement meant choice. Hinata had said something simple, maybe even clumsy, but it landed near the center of him.
For one second, Isagi forgot the ball under his foot. “That’s actually a good way to look at it,” he said, voice quieter with genuine interest. “Most people just follow the ball when they watch, but the important stuff happens before the ball gets there.”
Hinata’s eyes widened, and she moved even closer to the fence with immediate hunger for explanation. “Before?” she asked, her tone eager and unguarded. “Like how?”
Isagi lit up.
Kageyama had seen Isagi explain things before. He was careful when teaching, patient without sounding superior, and good at adjusting his words when someone looked lost. But with Hinata, he did not begin carefully. He began with excitement, pointing toward the field as if he could not help sharing the shape of what he saw.
“Like that,” he said, gesturing toward two players near the far side, his voice gaining speed while his eyes tracked the developing drill. “Chigiri’s not waiting for the pass. He’s already looking at the space behind the defender. If the timing is right, the pass isn’t going to where he is now—it’s going where he’ll be two seconds later.”
Hinata followed his pointing finger, brows furrowed in concentration. “So the ball is late?” she asked, her mouth tightening with effort as she tried to understand.
Isagi laughed, not mockingly but with surprise and delight. “Kind of. Or the player is early,” he replied, his hand still half-raised, attention fully on her face now. “That’s why timing matters.”
Hinata nodded hard, as if she had just been entrusted with secret knowledge. “That’s cool,” she said, voice bright with sincerity. “You think about all that while running?”
Isagi rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly shy under such direct admiration. “I try to,” he admitted, his smile turning a little embarrassed. “Sometimes I’m just desperate.”
Hinata laughed, and Isagi laughed with her.
Kageyama stood beside them with the calm expression of a person watching two vending machines malfunction at the same time.
She was not being ignored. Isagi had greeted her first. Hinata had brought her. Neither of them had forgotten she existed. In fact, Hinata turned toward her every few minutes, as if checking that Kageyama had not silently wandered off or been eaten by campus wildlife. Isagi’s eyes also flicked back to her now and then, comfortable and familiar.
But the center of gravity had shifted.
It was not a dramatic betrayal. It was worse because it was natural. Isagi and Hinata talked like two people discovering a shared rhythm by accident, their sentences bumping into each other, adjusting, then moving more smoothly. Isagi explained movement, Hinata asked questions, Isagi answered too seriously, Hinata reacted too openly, and every tiny exchange built a bridge Kageyama had accidentally handed them the tools to make.
“Kageyama,” a new voice sang from much too close, “your face is doing something scary.”
Kageyama turned her head.
A boy with yellow eyes and a grin like trouble leaned against the fence two steps away, his black hair with golden under-lights was styled in a mod-cut hair that reaches up to his chin. He had appeared so quietly that even Kageyama, who usually noticed people entering her space, had not registered him until he spoke. His training shirt was slightly crooked at the collar, one hand hooked through the fence, his posture loose and boneless as if standing still was a game he was only pretending to play.
Kageyama stared at him. “Who are you?” she asked, her voice so flat it could have been printed on official paper.
The boy’s grin widened, delighted rather than offended. “Bachira Meguru,” he said, placing his free hand against his chest with theatrical politeness that did not suit him at all. “Isagi’s best friend, field gremlin, and occasional emotional interpreter.”
Kageyama looked him up and down once, slow enough to be insulting. “That sounds like a fake position,” she said, her face unchanged.
Bachira made a pleased sound at the back of his throat, rocking on his heels. “She bites,” he said, not to anyone in particular, his eyes shining with immediate interest. “Isagi said you were funny, but he didn’t say you were sharp.”
“I’m not funny,” Kageyama replied, her brows drawing together as if he had accused her of a crime. “And stop standing there like that. You’re supposed to be practicing.”
Bachira glanced over his shoulder toward the field, where several players were beginning another drill without him. “I am practicing,” he said, voice light and completely unconvincing as he turned back to her. “Observation is practice.”
Kageyama’s gaze hardened. “Then observe from the field.”
Bachira laughed.
It was different from Isagi’s laugh. Isagi’s laughter usually reacted to something and then folded back into the conversation. Bachira’s laughter spilled out like he enjoyed the act itself. It made Hinata glance over with curiosity, and Isagi turned at the sound immediately, his expression shifting into resigned warning.
“Bachira,” Isagi called, balancing the ball under his foot while looking like a man who had seen this disaster forming from far away. “Coach is going to yell if you keep bothering them.”
Bachira placed both hands against the fence and leaned closer to Kageyama, ignoring Isagi with cheerful precision. “Am I bothering you?” he asked, lowering his voice into exaggerated seriousness while his eyes studied her face too openly. “Your expression says yes, but your feet didn’t move away, so I need more data.”
Kageyama’s mouth pressed into a thin line. “Your data collection is bad,” she said, voice low with irritation. “I didn’t move because Hinata is standing beside me.”
Hinata, who had been following the exchange with growing amusement, raised one hand in a tiny wave. “Hi, I’m Hinata,” she said, smiling brightly at Bachira as if he had not just introduced himself as a field gremlin. “You’re Isagi’s weird friend, right?”
Bachira turned to her with immediate delight. “You’re the bread girl,” he said, pointing at her convenience store bag like he had identified a suspect. “Isagi came to practice yesterday with melon bread crumbs and a suspicious voice.”
Isagi’s face changed with alarming speed. “Bachira,” he said again, this time with the strained politeness of someone trying not to yell in front of guests. “Practice.”
Hinata blinked, then looked at Isagi with dawning curiosity. “Suspicious voice?” she asked, tilting her head, her tone innocent but interested in a way that made Isagi visibly regret knowing Bachira.
Isagi stepped closer to the fence, the ball forgotten at his feet for the second time in five minutes. “He exaggerates everything,” he explained quickly, one hand lifting as if he could physically stop the phrase from spreading. “I sounded normal.”
Bachira’s eyes slid to Kageyama.
Kageyama noticed. She hated that she noticed.
“Normal,” Bachira repeated, stretching the word until it became useless. His gaze remained on Kageyama’s face, bright and searching, as if he expected her to react to something no one had said out loud. “Sure. Super normal. Nothing cute at all.”
Hinata’s cheeks colored with confusion and flustered laughter, though she tried to hide it by looking into her snack bag. Isagi made a pained sound and dragged one hand down his face. Kageyama, meanwhile, stared at Bachira with the blank hostility of a woman deciding whether university regulations allowed her to kick a soccer player through a fence.
“You talk too much,” she said, every word clipped and clean.
Bachira beamed at her. “You listen too much,” he replied, voice softening into something playful but pointed.
The sentence landed strangely.
Kageyama’s eyes narrowed. She had not expected him to turn the observation around so quickly. Most people bounced off her bluntness, either retreating or trying to smooth over the edges. Bachira did neither. He leaned into the edge like he wanted to see if it cut.
Before Kageyama could answer, a sharp voice barked from the field. “Bachira! If you have time to flirt through the fence, you have time to run!”
The shout came from a tall, imposing player with black spiky hair styled like a crown and an expression that suggested he had been personally insulted by everyone’s existence. He stood near the cones with his arms crossed, glowering like a monarch forced to supervise livestock.
Hinata grabbed Kageyama’s sleeve, eyes widening. “That’s the peasants guy,” she whispered with intense recognition.
Kageyama looked at Barou Shouei for two seconds. “He looks exactly like he sounds,” she said, tone dry enough to make Hinata choke on her laugh.
Bachira pushed himself away from the fence with a lazy stretch, looking utterly unbothered by Barou’s anger. “Coming, King,” he called, waving one hand with infuriating cheer before turning back to Kageyama. His smile changed slightly, still playful but more focused. “Stay there, scary girl. I wanna see if your face changes when soccer gets interesting.”
Kageyama stared at him. “It won’t,” she said, expression flat.
“We’ll test it,” Bachira replied, eyes gleaming as he jogged backward onto the field, somehow avoiding a cone without looking. “Science is important.”
Kageyama watched him go with quiet disgust.
Hinata leaned toward her, still holding her sleeve. “He’s fun,” she said, whispering like she had discovered an animal at the zoo.
“He’s weird,” Kageyama answered immediately, her gaze still following Bachira despite herself.
Hinata’s mouth curved.
“Stop smiling like that,” Kageyama said, turning her head sharply.
Hinata pressed her lips together, but the smile only climbed higher into her eyes. “I didn’t say anything,” she began, voice muffled by the effort of containing herself.
Kageyama’s stare sharpened enough to make Hinata immediately correct course with a nervous laugh.
“I mean, I’m stopping,” Hinata said quickly, lifting both hands in surrender while her cheeks puffed with leftover amusement. “I am respectfully observing in silence.”
“That's not silence,” Kageyama muttered, but her eyes returned to the field before Hinata could answer.
Practice resumed with more structure. The coach divided the players into small teams, and suddenly the loose chaos sharpened into something with teeth. Isagi moved differently during play than he did in class. In class, he listened before acting. On the field, he listened with his whole body, reading angles, spaces, and small changes in posture until he looked like he was arriving at conclusions faster than the ball could travel.
Kageyama understood focus. She understood timing. She understood the irritating satisfaction of watching someone choose the correct route before everyone else knew there was a route to choose.
Isagi was good.
Not showy in the obvious way. Not loud like Barou, who demanded the ball with the royal arrogance of someone who considered passing a moral failure. Not fast like Chigiri, whose red hair flashed along the sideline as if the field had split open for him. Not strange like Bachira, who moved with loose, unpredictable rhythm, hips and shoulders lying in different directions while the ball obeyed him like a private joke.
Isagi was good because he watched.
Kageyama’s eyes tracked him automatically, following how he checked behind himself, adjusted his run, and slipped into space at the exact moment a defender looked away. It was satisfying in a clean, intellectual way. Like seeing a difficult equation solved without wasted steps.
Beside her, Hinata made a soft sound when Isagi received a pass under pressure and redirected it with one touch.
Kageyama looked at her.
Hinata’s fingers were wrapped around the fence again, her whole body tilted forward, expression open and absorbed. “That was smart,” she said, almost to herself, her voice carrying a kind of admiration that was still innocent but no longer casual. “He didn’t force it. He just made it easier for the next person.”
Kageyama looked back at the field, where Isagi was already moving again. She should have felt pleased that Hinata understood. Hinata was loud, impulsive, and sometimes rushed into things with the subtlety of a falling cabinet, but she had always been good at seeing effort. She noticed when people tried hard. She noticed when something mattered.
Isagi deserved to be noticed properly.
Kageyama knew that. She did.
So the feeling in her stomach was not jealousy. It was probably hunger, even though she had eaten before coming. Or maybe annoyance from standing too long. Or dehydration. Human bodies were inconvenient and full of misleading signals.
Bachira intercepted a pass near the center and spun between two defenders with a sudden, liquid twist that made the watching students gasp. His footwork looked careless until it worked. He cut left, dragged the ball right, slipped past Barou’s irritated shout, and then sent a pass toward Isagi without looking.
Isagi was already there.
For one brief second, the two of them looked like they had planned it without needing words. Isagi received the pass, adjusted, and shot low toward the corner of the practice goal. The keeper barely touched it before it went in.
Hinata cheered before she remembered she did not know whether cheering at practice was appropriate.
“Nice, Isagi!” she called, her voice bright enough to make several players glance toward the fence.
Isagi looked over.
Not at the whole fence.
At Hinata.
His face opened in surprise first, then softened into a smile that hit Kageyama with irritating precision. He lifted one hand in a small embarrassed wave, not too much because his teammates were already making noises, but enough. Hinata waved back, grinning like she had personally assisted the goal by shouting.
Kageyama stood beside her with her bag against her hip and told herself there was no reason to feel like the air had tilted.
Bachira, who had assisted the goal, did not look at Hinata. He looked at Kageyama.
From across the field, with sweat at his temple and laughter still loose in his mouth, Bachira turned his head just enough to catch her gaze. He raised his eyebrows as if asking for a reaction, his grin bright and annoying and entirely too aware.
Kageyama blinked once. Then she looked away on purpose.
Bachira laughed so loudly that Barou shoved him between the shoulders.
Kageyama heard him from the field, bright and delighted, and felt her irritation move sideways into something less familiar. Hinata missed the whole exchange because she was still watching Isagi.
That made it worse, somehow.
Practice ended near sunset, when the field had turned orange at the edges and the air smelled like grass, sweat, and cooling concrete. Players scattered toward the benches, some dropping dramatically to the ground, others arguing over the last drill with the intensity of people who did not understand the concept of casual recreation. Barou lectured someone about useless movement. Chigiri drank water in elegant silence while pretending not to listen. Kunigami, broad-shouldered and serious-looking, collected stray cones without being asked.
Isagi jogged toward the fence with a towel around his neck and his breathing still uneven. He looked tired but energized, the way he did after exams went well, though his face changed the moment Hinata held up a bottle of water from her convenience store bag.
“I bought extra,” Hinata said, thrusting it toward him through the fence with sudden shyness hiding beneath her usual brightness. “You looked like you were dying a little.”
Isagi accepted it with both hands, surprise flickering across his face before gratitude settled there. “Thanks,” he said, voice softer than the field noise around him. He looked at the bottle, then back at Hinata, his smile small and almost helpless. “I actually forgot to refill mine.”
Hinata’s shoulders lifted with pleased relief. “Good thing I bought it, then,” she said, trying to sound triumphant while looking far too happy over successful hydration.
Kageyama watched Isagi open the bottle. He had forgotten his water before. Once, after a morning lecture, he had mentioned it casually, and Kageyama had pushed her unopened carton of milk toward him because he looked pale. He had thanked her then too. Warmly. Normally.
This was normal. Everything was normal.
The fence beside Kageyama rattled lightly as Bachira hooked his fingers through it and leaned in from the field side, appearing again with the unnerving timing of a creature summoned by discomfort.
“You’re making the murder face again,” he said, voice low enough that Hinata and Isagi, occupied with the water bottle, did not immediately hear. His grin was playful, but his eyes were too sharp for the laziness of his posture.
Kageyama turned her head slowly. “I don’t have a murder face,” she said, her tone icy with the dignity of someone who absolutely had a murder face.
Bachira tilted his head, damp hair brushing his cheek. “You have at least three,” he said, counting on his fingers with mock seriousness. “There’s normal murder, hungry murder, and whatever that was when Isagi smiled at bread girl.”
Kageyama’s expression did not change, but her silence became heavier.
Bachira noticed. Of course he noticed.
His grin softened by half a degree, not disappearing but losing its bite. “Ah,” he said quietly, eyes studying her with sudden care hidden beneath the playful tone. “So that one has a name.”
Kageyama looked away first, jaw tight. “You’re imagining things,” she said, voice controlled, but the answer came too quickly to sound as solid as she wanted.
Bachira tapped one finger against the fence, the metal clicking softly between them. “Maybe,” he replied, and for once he did not sound like he was teasing only to win. “I imagine a lot.”
Kageyama did not know what to do with that kind of answer. If he had laughed, she could have insulted him. If he had pushed, she could have walked away. But Bachira only watched her with that strange loose patience, as if waiting was also a game he could enjoy.
Hinata turned then, still smiling from her conversation with Isagi, and noticed Bachira hovering near Kageyama. “Oh, Bachira,” she said brightly, holding up the convenience store bag. “I bought snacks too. Do soccer people eat after practice?”
Bachira’s attention flipped toward her instantly, cheerful again but not quite as careless as before. “Soccer people always eat,” he said, reaching through the fence with grabby fingers. “Especially tragic geniuses who get yelled at by kings.”
Barou shouted from the bench, “I can hear you, freak.”
Bachira accepted a packaged bun from Hinata and waved it toward Barou without looking back. “Good hearing, Your Majesty,” he called, voice full of sunny disrespect.
Hinata laughed so hard she had to hold the bag against her chest. Isagi covered his face with one hand, though the way his shoulders shook ruined the attempt at disappointment. Kageyama looked at the bun in Bachira’s hand, then at his satisfied grin, and decided that he had the survival instincts of a spoon.
“You’re going to get hit,” she said, her tone not concerned so much as observational.
Bachira looked at her while tearing open the wrapper with his teeth. “Will you avenge me?” he asked, voice muffled slightly by plastic and mischief.
“No,” Kageyama replied without hesitation, her gaze flat.
Bachira smiled around the first bite. “Cold,” he said, sounding delighted rather than hurt. “I like it.”
Kageyama’s eyes narrowed. Hinata looked between them with visible interest. Isagi also looked, though his expression carried more confusion than suspicion. Kageyama did not appreciate either version of attention.
“We should leave,” she said, turning away from the fence before Hinata could turn that interest into questions. Her voice came out brisk, almost sharp, because leaving was easier than standing there while Bachira chewed bread and looked at her like she was more interesting than his own teammate’s almost-flirtation. “It’s getting late.”
Hinata checked the sky, then nodded with immediate agreement. “Right, we still need to stop by the bookstore,” she said, shifting her bag higher on her shoulder. She smiled at Isagi through the fence, softer now that practice had ended and the field noise had thinned. “Good practice. I mean, it looked good. I don’t know enough to judge properly, but it was fun to watch.”
Isagi’s hand tightened around the water bottle. “Thanks for coming,” he said, and his voice had that same warm, slightly embarrassed quality again. “If you want, I can explain more next time. The drills probably make more sense with context.”
Next time.
Kageyama heard those two words like a chair scraping against the floor.
Hinata heard them like an invitation. Her whole face brightened before she tried to control it, which meant she did not control it at all. “I want to,” she said, then quickly added, “I mean, if Tobio comes too.”
There it was.
The first inclusion.
Hinata turned to Kageyama with an expression that was both hopeful and careful, as if she was trying not to run too far ahead without her. Isagi also looked at Kageyama, familiar kindness returning to his face, the kind that made it clear he did want her there. They were not excluding her. They were doing the opposite.
Kageyama felt something inside her grow more tired. “I’ll come if I have time,” she said, because refusing would make Hinata’s face fall, and agreeing too easily would make Bachira’s eyes sparkle with whatever problem he had decided she was.
Bachira’s eyes sparkled anyway. “Good,” he said, leaning his chin against one forearm on the fence while looking directly at her. His voice had gone sing-song again, but the attention beneath it was oddly steady. “Then I’ll make the soccer interesting enough for your face to change.”
Kageyama met his gaze with controlled irritation. “Focus on practice before the king kills you,” she said, her voice dry and blunt.
Bachira looked pleased enough that Kageyama immediately regretted giving him a full sentence.
Hinata said goodbye with both hands. Isagi waved with his water bottle. Bachira waved the half-eaten bun. Barou shouted at Bachira for getting crumbs near the cones. The whole scene was noisy, stupid, and strangely golden in the sunset, like university life had decided to become a romantic comedy without asking Kageyama’s permission.
As they walked away from the field, Hinata stayed quiet for almost thirty seconds. That was how Kageyama knew disaster was coming.
“So,” Hinata began, drawing the word out with careful brightness while clutching her bag in both hands. Her steps bounced slightly, betraying the excitement she was trying to package into casual conversation. “Soccer practice was fun.”
Kageyama looked straight ahead. “It was practice,” she said nonchalantly.
“Isagi is really good,” Hinata continued, glancing sideways with a smile that kept escaping no matter how often she tried to press it down. “Not just with scoring. He thinks a lot. It’s cool.”
Kageyama’s fingers tightened around her tote strap. “He’s observant,” she answered, because that was true, and truth was safer than whatever else the conversation wanted from her.
Hinata nodded enthusiastically, eyes warm with fresh admiration. “Yeah. He explains things nicely too,” she said, her voice softening in a way that made the words feel more private than she probably intended. “When he talks about soccer, he looks like he’s seeing something far away and trying to bring it close enough for someone else to understand.”
Kageyama didn't respond.
The campus path stretched ahead of them, lined with trees and vending machines glowing faintly as evening settled. Students walked in small groups around them, laughing, carrying club bags, complaining about assignments. Life moved normally. Nothing was wrong.
Hinata slowed a little. “Tobio?” she asked, her voice quieter now, touched with the gentle alertness that made Kageyama’s chest feel crowded. “Are you tired?”
Kageyama kept walking. “No,” she said, then realized the answer was too quick and added, “Standing for a long time is annoying.”
Hinata accepted that with a small nod, though not entirely. She walked beside Kageyama without pushing further, but her gaze stayed attentive at the corner of Kageyama’s vision. Hinata noticed feelings better than she understood them. It was one of her worst qualities. Also one of her best.
Kageyama did not want Hinata to notice this one. Mostly because there was nothing to notice.
She was not jealous, she was not upset.
She had introduced two friends, watched them get along, and attended soccer practice as a normal person doing normal things with normal friends. Isagi had smiled at Hinata because Hinata was easy to smile at. Hinata had admired Isagi because Isagi was good at what he did. Kageyama had no claim, no complaint, and no reason to feel like something had slipped quietly out of her hand before she had decided whether to hold it.
So she said nothing.
Hinata filled the silence eventually, not with questions this time but with a story about the bookstore clerk who always mispronounced their professor’s name. Kageyama listened, corrected one exaggerated detail, and let the conversation return to familiar ground.
Behind them, back at the field, Bachira stood near the bench with his water bottle hanging from one hand, watching the two girls disappear down the path.
Isagi came up beside him, towel over his head and posture loose with post-practice exhaustion. “What are you looking at?” he asked, following Bachira’s gaze toward the campus walkway where Hinata’s orange hair was still barely visible beside Kageyama’s darker silhouette.
Bachira smiled slowly, but this one was smaller than his usual grin. “Your bread girl is cute,” he said, voice light enough to sound like teasing.
Isagi coughed once and looked away. “She has a name,” he replied, rubbing the back of his neck with a hand that still held Hinata’s water bottle.
Bachira’s smile widened because Isagi had walked directly into the trap without being pushed. “Hinata,” he said, tasting the name with too much amusement. “I know. You said it like six times.”
Isagi frowned at him, embarrassed but too tired to argue properly. “I didn’t count,” he said, his voice defensive in a way that made the denial useless.
“I did,” Bachira replied cheerfully, then turned his gaze back toward the path even though Kageyama and Hinata had vanished around the corner. His expression shifted again, curiosity sharpening beneath the playfulness. “Kageyama noticed too.”
Isagi paused. For the first time since Hinata had handed him the water bottle, his expression lost its softness. Something thoughtful moved in his eyes, not guilt yet, not understanding, just the first small shadow of awareness. “Noticed what?” he asked, his voice quieter.
Bachira looked at him with the amused pity of someone watching a friend fail a very simple test. “You’re so good at seeing the field,” he said, swinging his water bottle lightly by the neck. “But people off the field are funny, huh?”
Isagi’s brows drew together. “Bachira, what are you talking about?” he asked, tone serious now because he understood enough to know he was missing something.
Bachira only laughed and started walking toward the locker room, his steps loose and careless again. “Nothing yet,” he said over his shoulder, voice bright with trouble and something almost kind beneath it. “But it’s getting fun.”
Isagi watched him go, then looked once more toward the path where Hinata and Kageyama had left.
He thought about Hinata’s laugh, Kageyama’s quietness, the way Bachira had looked through the fence as if he had seen a story beginning before anyone else noticed the first page.
Then he looked down at the water bottle in his hand.
It was just water. That was what Isagi told himself.
Across campus, Kageyama walked beside Hinata under the evening trees and told herself something similar.
It was just soccer practice. That was all.