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“No.”
“Aww, c’mon Daichi!!! Please!?”
“I said no, Nishinoya.”
“But- But it’s almost Christmas!”
“Order a pizza, decorate a tree, or something, but we are not covering the gymnasium in lights!” Nishinoya pouts, hunching over like the enthusiasm has been leached out of him by Daichi’s denial. Unaffected by Nishinoya’s last attempt to guilt him into agreeing, Daichi shoos the libero back towards the court.
“No lights on the gym.. No lights on the gym! What kind of christmas is it if there’s no lights!?”
“I can hear you mumbling, Noya! Get back to practicing!” Just as Nishinoya is simmering, in comparison with a volcano about to blow, Hinata bounds over, a ball of sunshine and rainbows as usual.
“Senpai, Senpai! Mama says it’s my turn to decorate the tree this year, but it’s huuuuuge!!! Like, GWAAH huge!!! Can you come and help?!” All Nishinoya needs to hear is ‘decorate’, ‘tree’, and ‘huge’, and his mind is already conjuring up lights and baubles a plenty, a tree that would show up and glow up on a satellite image from Pluto.
“Sure thing! I love decorating!”
“Great! I’ll ask everyone else too, and thank you Nishinoya-senpai!” Beaming a smile that could steal the hearts of thousands, Hinata jumps back to drills when Kageyama calls for him to stop slacking off.
Brimming with Christmassy excitement, practice seems to fly by. Nishinoya, Hinata, Kageyama, and Tanaka race to the changing rooms, almost knocking Asahi over as they barrel past, three of them intent on Christmas decorating, one simply reacting on instinct to a race.
No prizes for guessing who.
“Hey! You four! We haven’t done the cool down yet!”
“Let them go, Ennoshita. There’s no hope of controlling them when they’re in this mood.”
“They’re going to regret it tomorrow.” Tsukishima snickers under his breath, covering his mouth with his hand.
“Maybe we’ll see the shrimp stay still for more than three seconds, for once~.”
“Tsukki, don’t be mean!”
“You’re laughing, Yamaguchi.” Caught out, Yamaguchi bashfully looks away, and clears his throat before he starts walking towards the clubroom, Tsukishima’s eyes on his back.
“... You’re not seriously going to decorate a tree with those idiots, are you? It’s likely one of them will die.”
“Well then, they’ll need supervision, won’t they?” Smug, Yamaguchi leaves Tsukishima standing there in stunned silence until he’s disappeared from view. Suga grins as he claps a hand on the stunned middle blocker’s back.
“Have fun trying to keep them alive! Word of warning, Noya can 110% turn a string of lights into a deadly weapon, and Tanaka will try to fight anything inflatable.”
“Greeeeat.” Asahi nervously chuckles, waving his hands around slightly.
“I’ll be coming too, so, uh… Maybe we can keep them.. Somewhat under control?” Tsukishima stares Asahi directly at eye-level with a deadpan expression.
“No. No, we’re going to die.” His ‘enthusiasm’ maintains the same level even as the group walk to Hinata’s, taking turns to pedal on his bike up the steeper hills. Asahi trails along at the back of the group, keeping an eye out for cars coming up behind them so he can shout for everyone to tuck into the side, whilst Noya bustles ahead at the front, screaming with laughter when a car comes down the mountain road, running for his life and diving into bushes at the side.
The thing is, it’s fun. Not even Tsukishima can deny that, although he tries to keep it hidden. Only Yamaguchi can tell, because he’s known Tsukishima for so long that even the very faint widening of his eyes and the tiny twitch of lips is enough for him to read Tsukishima’s mood.
“We’re almost there!” Somehow, neither Hinata nor Kageyama are out of breath as they clear the last of the mountain path, into an idyllic plateau with only 6 houses, large ones with incredibly triangular roofs to make the snow slide right off. It’s not unlike that of Shirakawa-Go, but a much smaller and quieter community. Chickens and cows provide background noise, and Hinata pretty much throws his bike aside as he heads to the second house on the left.
“Mama! I brought friends to help with the tree! Are all the lights in the shed?” A muffled reply, and then a mini-Hinata comes out the house shrieking with glee, keys in her hand.
“We’re gonna decorate the tree, we’re gonna decorate the tree~!!!”
“H-Hey, Natsu! Get back here!” Hinata gives chase after his little sister, but the tiny demon has him entirely figured out and dodges him all the way to the shed. Tanaka tilts his head in confusion, not sure why the gigantic shed is completely detached from the house.
“So… Is this like a community shed or something?”
“Yup! It’s where we keep all the village decorations, so we got White Day, Girl’s Day, Children’s Day, Hanami, Easter, Matsuri, Halloween, Christmas, Hanukkah, and all the essentials in here! It’s not big enough for every festival, so we rent a lot from the town on the other side of the mountain.”
“No wonder it’s as big as a barn!” Noya’s excitement only increases, eyes glittering, as Hinata holds Natsu up to put the key in and unlock the shed. Being the strongest, Asahi and Tanaka each pull a door back, unveiling a world of pure joy and merriment.
“It’s beautiful…” Decorations line the entire interior, all organised perfectly on shelves and racks, each holiday fenced off to stop it spilling into another. Noya runs from section to section, screaming in various pitches and volumes at each section, until he reaches the Christmas one.
He freezes. He stares up at it, eyes wide. He drops to his knees, tears spilling out, and holds his hands out like he’s worshipping it. Concerned, Yamaguchi puts a hand on his shoulder.
“Uh, are you okay, Senpai?”
“I have seen God.”
“... Guys, we broke Nishinoya already!” Hinata and Natsu go straight into the Christmas section, using a wheelbarrow to bundle up the boxes of lights. And there are tons. Having come over to shake Noya out of his stupor, Tanaka gapes up at the selection.
“Dude… Just how many lights do you have?!”
“Uhhh…” Hinata stops to think, but Natsu grins and tilts her head adorably as she answers in a chipper tone.
“58,000 individual bulbs~.”
“WHAAAAA?”
“No, no, that was last year, Natsu. We have 64,000 this year.” Tsukishima blinks. He stares. He turns around and walks away, trying to exit what evidently appears to be a nightmare from the realm of astral projection. Before he can get too far, Yamaguchi grabs the back of his collar and drags him back.
Asahi helps get the lights off the top shelf, passing them down to be loaded into the wheelbarrow, and Hinata rolls it into the snow to dump the loads out at the base of a colossal pine tree, right in the centre of the village. Noya honest to god looks like he could burst into tears, seeing the air projectile launchers for getting the lights up to the top of the tree.
“This is the best day of my life.”
Tsukishima is sad to report that nobody died, but there was a hospital visit, two accounts of concussion, one sprained wrist, three lacerations that required stitches, and one case of a whipping from a string of lights.
He’ll never dismiss Suga’s advice ever again.