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Hinata has very happy hair, Tobio has come to notice throughout their partnership.
It's orange, like the exquisite flames of the sweltering sun that keeps everything alive, that bathes them with each rising morning. When they jog side by side to the gym his molten curls catch the light and glow like honey. Even though it's messy it's wild with taste, the type of wind blown beauty that Hinata has always had like he just rolled out of bed and was perfect. Effortlessly beautiful and shiny like fresh gold, reflecting light everywhere and burning bright like flitting embers when the sky is luminous, slipping between the leaves and cherry blossoms to paint the orange spikes.
There are many words to describe the mood Hinata's vibrant hair lights in Kageyama. His hair is happy, excited, determined, fluffy like a basket of tabby kittens, fresh like baskets of spring fruits and flowers. When Tobio lays awake late at night and thinks about his veins and the thought of reaching the surface of this ocean he feels like he's drowning in, he pictures Hinata. Always hair first. Burying his face into it and sobbing until his voice goes hoarse and his tear dry out, until it fades into emptiness and hiccups, until his cheeks swell and ache.
"Kageyama, do you have a girlfriend yet?" Is what Hinata will ask him sometimes when he catches him drowning in himself, even though he doesn't recognize it yet. To him it's just Tobio spacing out and he keeps reminding himself that that's all Hinata will ever be allowed to see. That he doesn't want to keep ruining other people. That he'll chain himself to the bottom of the sea to keep these feelings far from Hinata, to keep himself far from rejection. It's pretty selfish of him and that is what Tobio has always been. He can't let people see, it's too hard to watch their faces twist up in disgust, confusion, a bastard mix of both. The day his mom saw his thighs is still one of the worst days of his life (even on his awful days. Even when he thinks 'it can't get worse than this, can it?' he knows it can. His mom's hot handprint on his cheek, on his knees with his hands in his lap, his eyes burning and his lip between his teeth. He's stupid and ungrateful. He's doing it for attention but if he was, wouldn't this feel spectacular? He listens but doesn't hear a word).
"Idiot, I don't need any damn girls taking up my valuable time and neither do you, so stop thinking about it!" He will bite back in response even though his heart hurts. It hurts so bad he just doesn't know what to do. What would a girl mean to him when his best friend has hair like this? There's already too much strain where he should've felt love. If he has to break a dozen hearts with a cold expression to keep his toxic sludge in a neat little box, then so be it. That's just so selfish. He's thirteen, behind his middle school, and he's telling Aoi from class C to shut up and leave him alone. All she wanted was to give him a box of chocolates for Valentines Day. But she shuts up and leaves him alone. “You ask the stupidest questions.”
A soft pink tongue peaks out of Hinata's pink mouth along with a spray of saliva. Messy, unabashed, authentic. Tobio feels ashamed that even getting spit on doesn’t feel so vile when it’s this hopelessly earnest midget. "So mean! This is why no girls like you! You're awful!"
Hinata's not wrong. His hard set eyes and stony unchanging expression are enough to chase away potential partners. His bright hair is what Tobio will yank. He does it to tide him over. He just wants to feel it. He is not angry at Hinata in the slightest, even if he can be so annoying and oblivious. He does not hate Hinata like he claims. He agrees with Hinata, in fact. Kageyama Tobio is awful and that is the truth.
Sometimes Tobio just wants to scream until his throat is bloody red raw just because his head is about that loud. Most days he doesn't want to live in this world any longer. He just feels sadness that is sticky and creeps into every crevice of his being. He knows he's depressed but in a way that’s so different than what he sees in sad movies. He’s violently depressed (he's in his lonely room tending to a black eye he gave himself) but sometimes it's okay because Hinata has happy hair, maybe that's because he has a happy head. And in Tobio’s disillusioned, nonsense world, that rationale is why Tobio's hair is inky black, like dark, dark inky melancholy that will pull you in and never let you go.
Maybe that's why he doesn't let Hinata touch his hair. What if it spreads? Or worse, what if it doesn't spread and Tobio is a fucking freak to him? One of two things will happen should he open himself up so he shuts himself down and trudges through with a scowl that could melt ice or put out the sun, should he desire it.
It hits the hardest when they're alone together and Hinata is at his most rambunctious. Tobio knows he has trouble sitting still, or staying focused, and it's not that he thinks it's annoying. It's that he likes it, loves it, loves him, loves every bit of him even the parts that aren't neon orange and that's so fucking scary because he knows Hinata doesn't like him. It's easy to love someone like Hinata, Tobio could fall and fall a hundred times over again. Tobio? Not so much. He's thirteen and Aoi's staring him down in the hallway, a melting smile dripped across her face, the day after he's left on the court. He pushes people away. He's good at it. Not just good; he's great at hurting people.
They're supposed to be watching this dumbass movie about some samurai's who are doing something that they're not supposed to because they're guilty or something, but he can't pay attention because Hinata's not paying attention and that's what the setter is paying attention to. The short spiker has these jumpy eyes that go all over the room and fidgeting hands that fiddle with loose threads on his tee, lips that are talking nonsensical jumbles. It's annoying and he hates it. It's endearing and he loves it.
"Kageyama?" Hinata says with this sudden urgency as he wiggles down on the couch to plant his head on Tobio's thigh and grip his hand with surprising strength. He tries not to get excited. Reminds himself that Hinata often played with his hands, which included tugging his fingers, cracking his knuckles one by one, and on occasions just holding them. Memories of him doing so after practice when their hands are sweat slicked and clammy flit through and he slips, allows himself to smile a bit. So small he wonders if it even shows on his face. His face has been molded to the shape of displeasure for so long that he wonders if his smiles are all in his head.
"What is it?" Tobio asks, pointedly avoiding looking at their intertwined fingers and feeling the sadness settle in again because it always does.
Even when he’s happy, there are hairline fractures in it and something cold and haunted manages to pool in; rot his happiness from the inside out. He wants this to mean something but it can't. They're both guys. Hinata’s the sun. Tobio’s an ocean of despair. Loving Hinata was nothing Tobio could've avoided because he's a box full of wonder that entrances and changes everyone. Tobio’s a chore and a brute with a lump of coal where there should've been a heart. But if he doesn't have a heart, then why did it beat so hard when Hinata's around? He’s liquid and if he tries to let someone in, he’ll just end up drowning them. If he says something worrisome, the inner ache will spread. If he’s honest about what he did the night after even his teammates walked away from him, he’ll just make people upset. (Except maybe Aoi from class C. She might've delighted in the pain of an asshole like Tobio.)
"You ever cut your wrists?"
His beating heart promptly drops into his stomach and he pales. "What're you talking about?" Tobio tries desperately to tug his hand away but his friends grip is strong and Hinata won't let go. He just presses Tobio's hand to his chest, right over his heart. He sweats, the panic like ocean water filling him up and drowning him from the inside. And who knew that you could drown from the inside, drown in your own ocean?
"I mean, I know you do. But like." Hinata shifts so that he's on his back instead of his side and looks right up at Tobio's dishonest face with concern. "Why? Doesn't it hurt?"
It never hurts more than the pain in my chest. Like I'm having a heart attack. But I know I'm fine.
That's what he wants to say. He wants to scream it so that it's clear that he doesn't slice open his flesh or spread bruises over his skin just because it's some sort of sick trend. He wishes he could show Hinata, show his mother that it isn't for attention or for petty reasons. He's hurting so much and if he can get just a little bit of relief from the pressure on his chest, making him hyperventilate and choke simultaneously, he will. Even if it makes him ugly. Asking for help is so much harder than they make it out to be, even more so when the common belief is that Tobio will bite the head off of anyone who offers it. He just can’t. The pity might kill him. He might kill himself.
"It... not that much." Now he's craving the sting that takes him all the way to a grayscale, to a horrible numb. Tobio wishes this would go away, the anxiety and the fear. Isn't he supposed to be confident and headstrong? Then why do his own feelings make him feel like tearing his stomach out? What type of sad wimp was he to justify gashes in his arms and black splotches on his thighs? "It doesn't hurt that much." That's a lie.
"I don't believe you, Kageyama, I really don't." Hinata says firmly, tugging up his sweater sleeve to reveal all the patches of gauze and blue bruises. They look odd on his muscular forearms. An athlete playing in a depressed teenagers court. It's odd to be both.
Tobio reddens and looks away in shame, his teeth gritting. He did that to himself. He can't put it any other way.
"It's like... Kageyama, do you understand like... how pretty you are?"
He blanches. The world goes blank for a second. "What?"
With a frustrated expression, Hinata groans and lays his lips on Tobio's inner wrist, where the tender purple splotches are still healing. It’s sick. That part is hideous and Hinata shouldn’t be looking at it, let alone putting his mouth on it. He speaks his words into Tobio's wounds, lips on ugly flesh. "You're just so stupid pretty and when you do stuff like this, I just wonder if you really know what you're doing. Like, the way you drink water after practice- the way you frown when you're confused and- and like your hair when we run in the morning. It's all shiny 'n pretty even though it's just plain 'ol black hair! Everything you do is incredible just 'cos it's you... I guess? If that makes sense? Like, you're so beautiful it's annoying but then you go and... I don't know. You go and forget that I'm right here. Guess ya can't be beautiful and smart..."
Tobio's not beautiful. What's Hinata saying? Did he understand himself? Saying all those weird things that tie Tobio's stomach into dozens of knots and sets insects into his tummy—he's not sure if they're butterflies or maggots, but it's a feeling that isn't depression. It’s terrifying. He’s many things but he’s not pretty and he can’t handle hearing it from Hinata. It’s not real. Even if it is, it only lasts so long. A minimal shove, a harsh word, and Hinata will evaporate. (But Hinata's heard that and worse from him, so why is he still here?) "No, shut up, I'm not, you're just, shut up, shut up, shut up,"
"Kageyama, you shut up! You're like the stupidest coolest boy I've ever met and it makes me feel really weird like all I want to do is kiss you and hug you and tell you how incredible you are and-and this is really hard to say but I really, really love you so just shut up and accept my feelings!" He says it all in one breath and is panting afterwards, pale face slowly heating up and he tosses so that he's on his side again, face to Tobio's stomach. "I need you to accept my feelings so we can feel stupid and weird together and so- I can help you! With whatever you need help with! I want all that stupid stuff and I want it with you and no one else! I’m not going to watch anymore, and I want you to let me into your life- off the court- because if I love you like this, what kind of coward am I to watch you suffer alone because I’m scared that you might hate me for reaching out?!”
He doesn't know what to do.
This isn’t supposed to happen, Tobio doesn't have his own inner puzzle figured out yet and he might never assemble all the pieces, he's all... all broken in the worst places, these feelings he's been harboring were supposed to vanish not flourish but his heart is suddenly slamming against his ribcage and. And he just.
Pets his hair.
Maybe if his melancholy ink hair can spread upon direct contact, Hinata's golden orange mess will slowly make Tobio alright. It’ll sew together the sloppy, torn up mess of feelings he doesn’t know how to cope with, or even how to share, so he lets them kill him everyday. Maybe suffering alone is so addicting in a way, and the thought of change, of reprieve from the crushing weight, is so mortifying that he jumps through hoops to justify his loneliness. To keep people out and curl up in pain, all by himself, because the effort of being happy feels so impossible to tackle, and showing someone what his dark days really look like is scary. He doesn’t want to be labeled crazy. He just might be, though. Depression feels less like an affliction and more like who he is with every passing day. So, if Tobio strives for brighter days, what will be left of him? Who will he be?
It’s so much, too much. It’s ripping him apart but he can’t let it show.
"Hinata, you... your hair is very happy." He says after a long stretch of silence.
Hinata rockets up from his thigh to look at him like he's grown a second head, face inches from Tobio's. "What?!" He squawks, face twisting frustratedly. "No! What's your answer? I just confessed my love to you and- that's not an answer! And hair can't be happy, dumb dumb, it's hair! God, do you even know how much it took for me to say that?! I’m being romantically blue balled!”
"Yes it can, dumb ass." He mutters, knotting his fingers through the fluffy strands and breathing out a sigh, losing his grip on himself, his troubling thoughts, losing control. He’s so tired of being a sad fucking loser with no friends, and nothing to look forward to. Of being happiest on the court, then dragged back to the reality of his lonely life. Of his cramped, empty world. "Because your hair is happy. Really happy. Like in the morning when we jog and it's sunny and perfect. I... I love your hair. I love you so much. But, my hair is... it's really sad, and I hate it. Black is such a stupid color."
"Tobio, you're not making any sense! You sound stupider than me and I've never gotten double digits on - "
"You don't love me. You can't. No one loves me and no one will. I'm just.... I'm awful. You said it yourself. I mean..." Tobio forces the words out of himself, mostly because he feels like he’ll pass out if he tries to hold them in for much longer. "If I were the king of anything, it'd be something stupid like sadness. I don't know how to fix this, whatever I'm doing and- and I think I'm just supposed to feel terrible and die feeling just like that and you're not supposed to be there when I do! I don't want to drag you down with me,"
"Stop talking nonsense!" His small hands envelope Tobio's face and his warmth sinks in. Kisses are peppered over and over on Tobio's mouth and tears are starting to escape, but he’s supposed to be numb, infallible, cold to even the warmth of the sun. Why is he crying? Why is a sob climbing up and vibrating their connected mouths as he clutches Hinata's hips? The emotions are being strung out of him because Hinata's always been able to invoke the strongest reactions in most everyone he meets. He collects broken things and rather than fixing them, he changes them forever. They're not good as new but they're still good.
For a moment, they stop. Tobio looks into Hinata's eyes and sees victory in them. There's this intense look he gets when his anxiety dissolves, when he finds an opportunity to be great. He blinks languidly but the look in Hinata's wide eyes is still there. To be the object of Hinata's unshakable will, his determination, his affection... Hinata makes him question the fate he's always distantly thought he was destined for, endless pain and then a concise demise, and that's terrifying. A kingdom of sadness was a kingdom that governed itself while it's king slowly crumbled. The idea that he'll be anything other than sad is alien, but Hinata's never been predictable. The impossible happens with him in the equation. Nothing makes sense when Hinata's around and all he causes is enormous, life altering impacts.
"Your hair isn't black like sadness, Kageyama, or whatever it is you meant. It's black like... the sky. The sky when it's really late and there's a bajillion stars out. And it's also black like a whole flock of crows, all taking flight at once. It's like... oh! Our uniform!" He exclaims, triumphant and beaming. "I'm the orange and you're the black! So, that means we'll be together forever and ever and ever and you can't leave me so don't even think about it!"
"What if Karasuno changes the color of their uniforms?" Tobio deadpans, tears drying on his face. Hinata occupies his lap and his expression promises the world and so much more. Tobio doesn't need the world, he just needs tomorrow most days.
"Well then we'll still be together because I said so! And also, you're nothing like a king of sadness, dummy! You're like... uh, the king of something else. Something better, probably. If I love you, that's gotta mean you're good for something! Good for so much more than you think. Good for me. You make me better, you know? You... I think you make me a better person. I think that's what love is for."
He can't help the small crack of harsh laughter that follows. "The king of something else? How specific. Very convincing."
"Stop talking and enjoy the moment, Tobio!"
He breathes a sigh. Would everything from this moment forward change? Hinata has the power of a dumbass with too much luck for his own good and if Tobio has found himself as the center of his attention, then there wasn't a doubt about it. Change isn't instantaneous and Tobio still wonders when the weight on his shoulders will return. If it'll be heavier under Hinata's ministrations, or lighter. If his mom will ever forgive him for what he does when he's alone. But if anyone has to reach out, he's not terribly sad that it's his best friend who has wild curly hair that glows like orange fire. "Yeah. Whatever, Shouyou."
And, after years of embracing feeling like shit because it was so easy to drown alone, enjoy the moment he did.