Work Text:
Wings are said to be an expression of someone’s very soul, a window into their fate. Vibrant, expansive wings that glow in the sun foretell a down-to-earth personality with a life of blessings; paltry, soot-black, ragged wings that seem to exude frost foretell a closed-off, shy personality with a life of hardships.
Hinata is born with his wing bones fractured so badly that they have barely grown at all. They don’t, even as he ages, even through countless visits to countless doctors. The wing analyzer his mother takes him to tells him this: You’ll yearn, and yearn, and yearn, so bad you swear you can feel your wings fluttering on your back, stretching out for flight. But you will never amount to anything, just as your wings will not.
Hinata is determined to prove her wrong.
/ * \
Being grounded, as someone like Hinata is, is not the easiest thing to be. People don’t want to associate with someone who’s been so cursed as to not have wings at all. Those with misfortune enough to have jet-black wings are ostracized. Hinata rarely has any attention paid to him save for the gaping looks of passerbys, the occasional jeer of classmates. (His wings ache every time.)
Still, Hinata lets the awe of the Little Giant—beautiful, white wings like clouds, fluffy and billowing whenever ; he jumps—sweep him away. Still, Hinata opens up his volleyball def team, manages to make two friends who are pushed out of the social sphere, too. It’s enough; he’s always managed to do well enough by himself.
When he finally manages to gather enough players, Hinata's entire soul thrums with pure joy. On the day of the tournament, Hinata practically vibrates out of himself with excitement. He marches into the gym, confidence emanating from every little bit of him.
Then the Kitagawa Daiichi lineup walks by his team, and he sees it. For a second, he swears he’s imagining it, but his eyes stay glued to it, and it’s there.
#2 has harsh, diagonal, red-black scars under the wing holes of his jersey that hurt to look at. They seem irritated, all gory and scarlet on the edges, like they’re gnawing at the skin all down to the bones.
Hinata’s wings twitch. He feels something like hope settle in his veins despite the gruesome sight. Maybe, if such a prestigious team could have a vice captain without wings, then he could become a core part of a team just as great.
/ * \
“You say you’re going to be an ace when you don’t even have functional wings?” Kageyama bites as they confront one another in front of the bathrooms. “Do you even know how important wings are for spiking, for keeping you elevated when you jump? You can’t possibly become an ace with wings like that.”
Hinata trembles with anger, frost settling over his heart. “I can win, and I will. You’ve never seen me—”
“I don’t have to see you jump to know you’re not going to make it anywhere,” Kageyama scoffs, turning on his heel and walking away. Hinata isn’t even worth his time.
Hinata’s hands shake like an earthquake is running through his veins. He’s going to fly in his own way, he knows it; he’s going to prove Kageyama wrong, wrong, wrong.
/ * \
Hinata jumps, no, flies. The shock on Kageyama’s face makes satisfaction simmer deep within him. His wings are dysfunctional, he knows, but he swears they’re fluttering like any normal set would, hoisting him up each time he spikes. This—this must be the feeling of flying he’s missed all his life. The wonder of it spreads from his chest all throughout him, makes him even lighter than air.
They lose, but the feeling still stands staunchly in Hinata’s chest. This is even better than flying, and he’s only just begun. Even as he pledges to Kageyama to overthrow him, the tears streaming down his face.
/ * \
Kageyama and Hinata work out a weird sort of companionship when he comes to Karasuno. It doesn’t come easy to Hinata, not at first, but something about Kageyama seems to have defrosted. There’s something very different about him, more humble.
(Kageyama’s voice twinged when he recited the Kitagawa Daiichi benchwarmers’ whisperings of he wants to make the rest of the team grounded just like he is, and it tugs at Hinata’s heart. Maybe they’re not as different as Hinata thought. Maybe Kageyama yearns for the same things Hinata does.)
/ * \
They’re practicing during lunch. The day is caught between summer and autumn, still just warm enough to work up a sweat if the sun’s beating down on them. Hinata’s curiosity gets the best of him. He’s been shoving it into the back of his mind time after time, but it just keeps coming back. It tumbles out as he bumps the ball back to Kageyama: “So what happened to your wings?”
Kageyama freezes.The ball falls to the ground just left of him, rolling away and hitting the wall. He stares at Hinata, mouth pressed into a line.
“You don’t have to answer,” Hinata says.
“No, it’s just—” Kageyama blinks once, twice, and scratches at his knuckles. “I’m not used to people asking about it. It was an accident in middle school. Second year. I shattered my wing bones and they, ah, had to amputate them. ‘Cause they couldn’t do anything to save them.”
“Oh,” Hinata murmurs, for lack of a better response. “Does it—do they hurt?”
“Sometimes. I still feel my wings there, randomly, and that’s when they do. But then I look back and they just… aren’t, even though I can feel the wind on them and everything.”
“Mine were fractured when I was born and didn’t grow like they should’ve,” Hinata offers. “My mother kept taking me to those wing fortune teller people, y’know? And one of them told me I’d be just like my wings. I’d never grow or amount to anything.”
Kageyama barks out a laugh, and Hinata’s heart jumps. “That’s so stupid. I hope you didn’t put any stock into that crap, ‘cause obviously you’re growing plenty. You’re going to be with me at the top of the world, remember?”
Hinata can’t figure out why his heart starts thrumming.
/ * \
When Kageyama tosses to Hinata, sometimes it feels like even more than flying; sometimes, it feels more like soaring. He thinks that even if he had wings, it’s possible he wouldn’t have been able to achieve this feeling without Kageyama.
That’s how he figures out that he likes Kageyama. This deep-rooted, humming satisfaction feels unlockable only with Kageyama by his side. He has dreams of the future that involve Kageyama at their center—that’s not just friendly affection.
He relishes in the unyielding sense of partnership they have. The steady thrum and thrill of his heart, the way his energy overflows when they’re together, he values even more. Hinata always wants to be close to Kageyama.
Keeping it all locked up within him won’t help anything, though. It’ll just keep coming back, and coming back, and coming back, like Hinata’s curiosity about Kageyama’s wings, worse every single time, because he’s always with Kageyama. He can't avoid being with Kageyama, so he can't avoid wanting to be with him.
So, Hinata is going to confess. Somehow.
/ * \
Any plan Hinata might’ve formulated goes down the drain one afternoon as they’re walking home. It’s arrived: that weird phase between autumn and winter where you can smell the cold, the frost, in the air, and it tastes like home. It puts Hinata at ease until his mind tickles with the concern about Kageyama’s phantom pains.
“You doing okay?” Hinata asks him, watching his breath cloud the air in front of him.
Kageyama glances at him in surprise, shakes his head. “Why?”
“Oh, nothing, I just—I read that sometimes temperature change can be felt on phantom limbs right? So I was worried maybe that would cause your pains to come back, ‘cause of the huge change from the gym to, well, here.”
“Dumbass,” Kageyama says, but he’s smiling. It’s one of the first times Hinata’s seen him smile genuinely. Hinata’s heart throbs. “You don’t have to worry about that.”
Hinata is staring at Kageyama, lost in just how stupidly pretty he is when he smiles. So unfair. Kageyama elbows him. “What are you staring at me for?”
“You’re so pretty,” Hinata blurts.
Kageyama stops walking. So does Hinata, when he realizes what he’s said, and his face burns in mortification. “What?” Kageyama coughs.
“No, no, uhm, I said—you’re so—so…” Hinata’s train of thought short-circuits. “Don’t kill me,” he pleads.
“You—think I’m pretty? What the hell, Hinata?”
“Well—well, you are, stupid! Especially when you smile! You’d have to be stupid to not think that! Ugh, I imagined this going a hundred different ways—”
“What is this?” Kageyama asks, tinny.
“I—I don’t know! A confession, I guess, now, since there’s not really anywhere else this can go! I think you’re pretty, and I like you, Bakageyama!’
Kageyama blinks at him. “What?”
“You heard me, stupid! I’m not—I’m not saying it again.” Hinata rubs his cheeks with both his hands, feeling the warmth exuding from them like a furnace.
“You like me?”
“Yes, oh my gosh, you total dummy. I like your stupid pretty face, your terrible personality, your tosses, all that stuff. I have for a while, now.”
Kageyama stands there. The wind blows his hair into his eyes as he stares at Hinata, dumbfounded.
“You have to give me an answer, you know!” Hinata prods him.
“Stupid, I—you confessed out of nowhere! That takes some time to process. But, uhm. I—I like you, too, I think. No, I do. If you’re—sure, and all.”
Hinata’s heart jumps and skips a beat. He does, too. Kageyama likes me. “Of course I’m sure, stupid! I care about you a lot, a lot. I’m willing to bet I’ve liked you longer than you’ve liked me.”
“Three months ago,” Kageyama mumbles. “When we stayed after practice and put all the equipment away and then you decided you wanted to practice longer and made me take it all out again. I was so irritated, but at the same time, I was really happy, and…” He trails off, scratching his cheek self-consciously.
“Shoot, I was a month and a half ago! I was so sure—”
“That’s not even that long ago, dumbass,” Kageyama snorts. “How did you expect to win that one?”
“I had hopes, okay, Kageyama, and you just dashed them—you’re so cruel.”
“You still like me.”
“I do,” Hinata agrees, smiling softly, and takes Kageyama’s hand in his own, playing with Kageyama’s fingers for a few moments before just holding it. He’s able to do this, freely, because Kageyama likes him back—Hinata’s body simmers, smoldering with feeling and blistering with contentment.
Hinata yearns, and yearns, and yearns. He to be ever more closer, and feels his wings fluttering on his back as the wind sifts through them. Kageyama’s hand is heavy in his. The callouses of his hand almost tickle. Hinata rubs patterns on the back of Kageyama’s hands, intricate and mindless.
Hinata thinks, squeezing Kageyama’s hand, that he’s achieved a good deal of his dreams, and amounted to more than enough to realize the wildest of them. Kageyama smiles at him, soft, and Hinata knows this is only the beginning.