Chapter Text
Hinata’s friendship with Kenma was going great.
No, really, it was. Tonight was the first night of the Fukurodani training camp, the first time that the two boys had seen each other since the Karasuno and Nekoma practice match, the first time they’d talked in person instead of via text in weeks, and it had been going perfectly. The evening had been a whirlwind of (surprisingly not half-assed) tosses, silly conversations, and intensive gaming, Hinata relishing in every moment. It had made him ecstatic, knowing that Kenma enjoyed being around him too, that he enjoyed all of the simple activities they did together. Simple activities for simple, albeit new, friends.
Turns out there was nothing simple about Kenma at all.
It all started when Hinata remembered that he had loaned his jacket to Kenma earlier when they’d gone on a stroll across the grounds. He had been in the middle of brushing his teeth, humming a small jingle to himself while moving his toothbrush around in small circles, when his thoughts flashed back to the way that Kenma had tugged at the sleeves of Hinata’s Karasuno volleyball jacket earlier. It was a bit too small for Kenma, but Hinata had noticed the other boy shivering amidst the twilight air, and offered it to him. Kenma had accepted, a light pink dusting his cheeks, and Hinata’s heart had proudly swelled a size or two. Shortly after, he remembered Kenma waving goodbye as they went their separate ways for the night, awkward sleeves flapping in the wind, and then it dawned on him that Kenma had taken the jacket with him.
Now, Hinata needed that jacket. He didn’t like to think he was fussy or anything, but he got cold quite easily when trying to fall asleep, often needing layer after layer of blanket in order to reach a normal body temperature. During team events like these, when he was separated from the beloved thermostat in his room and his staggering pile of blankets, wearing that jacket was essential.
Quickly resolving to find Kenma and ask him for his jacket, he tugged his toothbrush out of his mouth, rinsed it quickly, then plopped it back into its cup. Wiping his hands on the towel hanging from the hook next to him, he shot himself a wide grin in the mirror. Just, you know, for confidence. It was a bit of a routine, him doing that, before he went to do something that made him nervous.
Not that asking Kenma for his jacket back made him nervous. No, that wasn’t it, it was more of Kenma himself that made Hinata nervous.
Sometimes, Hinata knew just exactly what it was about the older boy that unsettled him so much. Sweaty palms, a racing heart, and an unrelenting urge to throw himself into Kenma’s arms and kiss him senseless could only mean a few things. In Hinata’s case, it definitely meant that he was very much romantically interested in Kenma, especially since Kenma was totally his type — seemingly average and quiet in both looks and mannerisms, yet actually full of outstanding qualities in both departments.
Other times, however, Hinata couldn’t quite pinpoint why he suddenly felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Occasionally, Kenma would get this sort of gleam in his eye — a flash of something surfacing from beneath his gold irises, and Hinata would feel his stomach stir with unease. Or, Kenma would stare off into space suddenly, during the middle of a conversation, looking intently at an empty spot in front of him, and Hinata would get the strange feeling that Kenma was seeing something invisible to his own eyes.
He remembered a particularly unusual moment from earlier in the day, also during their evening walk, when Kenma’s eyes had suddenly snapped away from Hinata’s face to fixate on an area right over his shoulder. Confused, Hinata had looked at the exact spot that Kenma was staring at, to find nothing except for a couple of ordinary trees and flowers. When he had turned back to question Kenma about it, Kenma was staring at Hinata again, the strange glint present in his gaze.
Hinata shivered just thinking about it, crossing his arms and rubbing his hands against them to warm himself up. Ah. He was cold. The jacket.
Pushing all thoughts of Kenma’s odd behavior out of his mind, Hinata decided to get right to business, and exited the bathroom with a small skip in his step. He headed for the direction where the Nekoma team was staying, padding along in his socks, the wood floors feeling nice and cool beneath his feet. It was very quiet in the hallways, he noted, most of the teams having already collapsed into sleep due to the exhaustion from training, Karasuno included. Hinata was kind of an exception, considering he’d stayed up several hours late with Kenma, talking about all sorts of deep stuff.
When he reached the Nekoma room, he was relieved to see that the light was still on inside. It would’ve been awkward if he’d had to navigate his way through the maze of sleeping bags on the floor until he reached Kenma, who he’d then have to nudge awake with his toe and whisper frantically to, until Kenma would point groggily in the direction of his jacket. Kenma would honestly probably have kicked his ass, because he’d definitely hinted at needing all the sleep he could get in his texts, and if he woke anybody else up, he’d probably be given a very stern talking-to the next morning by Sawamura. Word spread quickly between teams during events like these.
Hinata peeked into the room, and took in the scene before him. There were various piles of sleeping bags haphazardly rolled out that rivaled Karasuno in terms of disorganization, pillows thrown everywhere, and water bottles and chip bags littering the floor. The Nekoma team members themselves were seated in a circle, talking quietly to one another.
Lev spotted him first.
“Hinata!” He grinned widely at him, waving a gangly arm back and forth. Some of the other team members looked Hinata’s way.
“Hey, Lev!” Hinata chirped back, shooting him an equally blinding smile. “Is Kenma here?”
He had scanned the circle briefly before greeting Lev, and hadn’t spotted any sign of the older boy.
A look of confusion crossed Lev’s face. “No? Actually, we —”
“He’s not with you, Shorty?” Kuroo interrupted, swivelling around to face Hinata. His hair was wet, bangs flopping in his eye even more dramatically than usual. It wasn’t a very good look.
“No...” Hinata replied, though a short spark of satisfaction flickered in his chest at the thought of being so closely associated with Kenma.
“Huh,” Kuroo mused. “He probably got tired of being around so many people and went off somewhere playing video games, then.”
Sounded like Kenma alright, but Hinata felt a tiny frown creep up on his face. That definitely didn’t help Hinata in his Super Important Jacket Quest.
As if on cue, he suddenly heard shuffling coming from down the hall. Shuffling… That gave him the strong impression of Kenma’s timid footsteps.
Startled, he stepped out of the doorway, and peered in the direction it had come from. The hallway was deserted, no other teams occupying any of the rooms lining it, darkness cloaking the entire space. He squinted. Wait. At the far end of it… There was a door.
The bathroom, Hinata remembered. There was a bathroom at the end of this hallway, one that was open for use. It looked closed right now, though, and there was no light coming from the cracks in the doorway. Besides, hardly anybody ever used that bathroom, it was too inconveniently located.
But then the weird feeling washed over him again, and he knew. Kenma was down there. Kenma, holding his precious jacket, was down there in the dark, barely-used bathroom.
“I’m gonna try the bathroom down there,” Hinata pointed down the hallway.
Lev nodded excitedly. “If you find him, tell him to come back! There’s this cool video I wanna show him!”
Hinata shot him another grin, then turned away from the room and began walking down the hallway as he heard Yaku shout “He isn’t gonna wanna see your stupid video!”, and Lev whine in response.
His smile faded, though, as he made his way towards the room. The feeling was pooling inside of his stomach now, starting to travel upwards and downwards to every part of his body, and he didn’t really know what he wanted to do about it. This strange sort of sensation was beginning to really weird him out.
It didn’t help that it was so late at night, the full moon shining from behind the layers of smog and dust clouding the Tokyo sky. It was so dark, and Hinata was always pretty jumpy in the evenings from watching a few too many horror movies, so it was only natural that he wasn’t feeling too good right now. Civilization (the Nekoma team) suddenly seemed miles (several meters) behind him, and he clutched his stomach that was starting to churn.
Not here, he thought miserably. Don’t make me throw up here, and embarrass myself in front of Kenma. Even if he’s in the bathroom murdering someone or something, I still like him!
He managed to hold in any and all urges to vomit as he approached the door. Reluctantly removing his arms from around his stomach, he reached for the doorknob with one hand. He hesitated at the last second, staring at the door in front of him, the bizarre feeling having filled him up inside entirely now. Coupled with a quiet sense of dread, he felt really, really creeped out.
It was really just a door. Nothing but a wooden, brown, basic door, adorned with a label that read Restrooms, and an Out of Order sign… Wait.
An Out of Order sign? Hinata felt a chill sweep over him, as his eyes widened and hesitation prickled his stomach. What business did Kenma have, in a bathroom that wasn’t even working?
Think of the jacket, Hinata’s mind hissed. You need to get the jacket.
Right. The jacket. He needed his jacket.
He gulped. Was the jacket really that important? Was the jacket really worth this? What if he went inside, and found Kenma sacrificing some small animal to Satan or something?
The wind howled outside, a window placed conveniently right next to Hinata, and he jumped a bit. Turning his head to the right, half expecting some ugly and terrible monster to be staring him down, he looked outside at the grounds surrounding the training center. Trees and parking lots and empty streets stretched out for all the eye to see. It was perfectly normal. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing creepy at all, even, unless you counted the huge moon glowing ominously behind the clouds.
Facing the door once again, he blinked viciously in an attempt to throw him out of his fear-induced stupor. He gripped the doorknob tightly, took a deep breath, thought once more of his precious, precious jacket that would allow him precious, precious sleep. He turned it.
In hindsight, he probably shouldn’t have just opened the door like that. It was a bathroom, one that was literally in use, who the hell just opens the door? Kenma could have been on the toilet!
Kenma wasn’t on the toilet, though.
No, Kenma wasn’t on the toilet, or even anywhere near it, for that matter. Instead, he was sitting cross-legged on the grimy tiled floor, hunched over a small pot of… Something? Whatever it was, it was too dark where Hinata was to tell, because Kenma was using a single candle to illuminate the room instead of a lightbulb like a normal person. It was bubbling, Hinata could tell that much, bubbling and frothing and nearly spilling out of the teeny tiny pot it was in. Surrounding Kenma were various vials of what looked like plants or herbs, as well as some tubes of gel, and many scattered sheets of paper. There was a giant wet spot on one of them, Hinata noticed, dumbfounded.
Clutched in one of Kenma’s hands was a wooden spoon that was stirring the pot, and in the other he had a sprig pinched between his fingertips, which he seemed like he was preparing to mix in.
All movements stopped the moment that Hinata entered the room.
He looked up, locked eyes with Hinata, and promptly froze, mouth dropping open. Hinata was sure that he looked just the same, because what the fuck? Kenma was sitting in a dirty bathroom, in the dark, at the end of a creepy hallway, mixing some plants together and making what exactly? What was in that pot? If the feeling from earlier hadn’t consumed him whole then, it definitely was right now.
The two boys stared at each other like they were both deer caught in the headlights of one another, neither of them sure what to do.
Do I say something? Hinata thought, somewhat frantically. Am I supposed to ask him what he’s doing? There were fumes that were beginning to rise from Kenma’s bizarre concoction, and he eyed it cautiously.
The candlelight softened Kenma’s features, the glow highlighting almost every detail of his face perfectly. His hair appeared a stronger gold, the roots an even darker black in contrast, and Hinata watched as one fell in front of his eyes, the only sign of movement from him in the past twenty seconds. Kenma didn’t blow it away.
I should definitely say something, Hinata thought, filled with overwhelming confusion and biting panic. It’s too quiet. The fumes were starting to creep higher and higher into the air.
He had just opened his mouth to speak, to say what he wasn’t really sure, when Kenma’s eyes suddenly widened. Something similar to fear, or horror, filled them up so quickly that Hinata wasn’t really sure what to do, and then he noticed that Kenma was looking over Hinata’s shoulder again.
A terrible sense of dread filled him.
Turn around, his mind shouted. Turn around! But his feet were glued to the floor, fear suddenly gripping him tightly, flooding him all at once, and yes, Hinata was brave and determined on the volleyball court, but this, this was crippling fear unlike anything he’d ever felt before. It stuck to his insides, paralyzing him and refusing to let him go, and it felt weird, so weird, weird in the sense that it was almost as if this wasn’t his body’s usual fight-or-flight response, as if this was somehow unnatural.
He felt overwhelmed with fear, dread, and - something else. Something like… Disgust?
“What?” He shouted wildly, because he didn’t trust that he could move properly the moment. “What is it?”
Kenma, eyes still filled with horror, began shakily, “Shouyou —”
And then Hinata was shoved violently to the ground.
In the few, brief seconds of his fall, he made note of several things: 1. The hands that had shoved him were icy cold. 2. They had come from his right side. 3. Kenma was right in front of him. 4. He hadn’t heard anybody approach him from behind. And finally, a logical conclusion, 5. Who had just pushed him?
His forehead hit the tile with a smack, and the dark bathroom promptly blurred before his eyes. Instantly, tiny pinpricks of stars were swimming in the corners of his vision, as a horrible whining sound filled his ears, and he winced. Fuck, that hurt. His head had taken the brunt of the fall, but his knees, which had apparently skidded against the tile so badly that he already felt liquid warmth prickling them, ached deeply as well.
He blinked, trying to clear his vision, as well as his hearing, because it felt as if his ears had been stuffed with cotton, muffling the sounds around him. And there were sounds, all right, because Hinata definitely heard something going on.
Deciding to focus on Kenma in order to stabilize himself, he saw him stirring the pot violently, the sprig that had been in his hand out of sight. He had probably put it in, Hinata thought numbly. Kenma’s face was doing funny little things, twisting into swirls and getting swarmed with the stars that were beginning to overtake Hinata’s vision. Kenma appeared to be speaking too, muttering some unintelligible words under his breath as he fixed his eyes squarely on the doorway.
Oh. Right. There was something in the doorway, something that had pushed him.
Something that Hinata really didn’t want to look at right now, because first of all, it probably wouldn’t be half as nice to look at as Kenma. And secondly, because even though Hinata was a solid minute and a half away from blacking out, he was still scared shitless. That fear lining his insides only made his head swim even more now.
But he turned his head anyways, because he was stupid and halfway delirious, not to mention curious beyond all hell. He almost choked when he saw what it was.
Standing in the doorway, at approximately 164 centimeters tall, was a perfectly accurate, raven black silhouette of Hinata Shouyou.
Despite the darkness that cloaked both the bathroom and the hallway, the silhouette stood out amongst it, blacker than anything Hinata had ever seen. The fear seemed to swallow him up whole then, as he stared at the figure, stared and stared and stared. It looked eerily like his twin, if he had a twin, and it wasn’t doing anything, standing perfectly still as both Kenma and Hinata stared it down. Shadow. The word drifted into his muddled mind suddenly, clear as day. It was a shadow.
His shadow?
He tore his gaze away from it when he heard Kenma shout something, something that was still indecipherable through the cotton in Hinata’s ears, but something that was loud. His head throbbed.
He watched, silent, as Kenma raised the pot to his face, and downed its contents immediately, some of the liquid escaping its path to his mouth and dribbling down his chin. And even though Hinata was pretty sure he was about to die, his dumb, Kenma-infatuated subconscious oh-so-helpfully thought, I’d like to go over there and kiss it off of him.
You’re about to die, get it together! The rational part of his brain shouted faintly. That shadow is about to eat you for dinner, stop being hopelessly in love for one second and go do something!
It was too bad though, that the rational part of his brain was starting to fade away slowly, along with the rest of his consciousness, as he watched the scene unfold before him, helpless and probably unable to even stand up.
After drinking the entire pot, Kenma thrust his hand in front of him, towards the shadow. He was speaking again, and the shadow remained still, as Kenma brought his finger in front of his face and wrote something in the air.
Hinata was too out of it to have the event register as unusual, instead finding it spectacular, gazing in awe as a glowing, white symbol appeared in the air that Kenma had traced. Kenma was still saying something, his voice growing steadily louder and louder, until the symbol began to move, began to drift towards the shadow, growing closer as the volume of Kenma’s voice rose.
The shadow twitched, and Hinata thought that it looked almost panicked, if a shadow could look panicked, and then Kenma brought his hand to his chest, placed his palm flatly against his heart, then thrust it out in front of him again.
The symbol touched the shadow, glowing even brighter, pulling some of the darkness towards it, absorbing it. The shadow seemed to struggle for a while, Hinata thought he heard a pained and garbled cry of anguish, and then the shadow promptly disintegrated into a thousand tiny, ashy pieces. The remains floated in the air for several seconds, landing softly on the walls and tiles and mirrors, before they disappeared.
Hinata felt a rush of triumph explode inside of him, and a silly grin broke out on his face. He wasn’t going to be shadow dinner! Kenma had saved him!
The fear he had felt before seemed to vanish right along with the shadow, for whatever reason, and he felt himself smiling even more as he saw Kenma rush over to him, eyebrows pinched together with worry. He cared about him, how sweet!
Hinata, despite his condition and the violent pounding of his head, tried to sit up. He pushed himself up with his arms, succeeding for a few seconds, before he began to feel dizzy again. He felt his arms give out beneath him, and he nearly fell back on the ground again, when Kenma caught him.
Hinata, in his delirium, could have swooned.
Kenma’s arms felt nice and strong, he mused, as he closed his eyes and leaned into the touch. Kenma smelled earthy, like herbs. And then Hinata felt something drip from his head onto the floor.
Confused, and feeling extremely warm all of a sudden, he reached up and touched his forehead gently. Hissing in pain, he drew his hand away almost immediately, and when he looked down, he was horrified to see that his fingers were covered in deep crimson.
Once again filled with fear, he looked up at Kenma, who was frowning. It wasn’t a nice look on him, and Hinata watched as the frown twisted into a lopsided grin. Then the grin twisted into a funny looking heart, and then a triangle, and then a squiggle, and then Kenma’s face was beginning to twist too, and then so was the room around him, and then Hinata finally blacked out.
*
Kozume Kenma was kind of freaking out.
Under normal circumstances, locating and defeating a shadow man was nothing difficult. This time, assuming that he hadn’t been interrupted during the making of his potion, things should have been the same.
He had already had his daily panic attack, earlier in the day when he’d seen Shouyou in person for the first time in what felt like forever, only to find that there was a shadow man attached to him. The shadow man had seemed almost ready to become sentient and able to move on its own, judging by the way it wiggled around and hopped energetically behind Shouyou. Kenma had seen this, promptly excused himself to the bathroom, and freaked out for a good fifteen minutes.
He had spent the whole day trailing after Shouyou, not only to spend time with him, but also to keep track of the shadow man. At several times during the day, the shadow man had appeared to wave at him, or smirk, or grin. It had been fucking with him, he realized belatedly.
Kenma knew just exactly how this shadow man had gotten here, and he was fully prepared to stop it.
And he’d come pretty darn close to doing so, and doing so easily, until Shouyou had burst in and forced him to halt his brewing, and then the clock had struck midnight, and then the shadow man had become alive.
Kenma had scrambled to get rid of it, forced to think on the spot and change his entire potion immediately, and it had worked, only now, one of his best friends was sprawled out in front of him, unconscious but viciously gripping Kenma’s arms as if they were a lifeline. (They very well could have been, if the huge gash on his forehead and the blood pooling on the floor were any indication.) He stared, dazed, at the way that the blood ran past his temple and onto the floor, making the small circle of red grow larger steadily.
The shadow man had given him a bit of a scare, sure, shadow men always did, but this — Shouyou knocked unconscious in front of him, eyes glazed over and cheeks smeared with blood — made him feel an entirely different kind of fear.
Never had he ever roped a human into any of his magical activities. This was the clear reason why. Then again, he had never had a real human friend until he met Shouyou.
Gulping, he set Shouyou down gently, positioning him so that his forehead wasn’t pressed against the tile. Kenma wiped his clammy hands on his sweatpants, and took in a ragged breath.
Okay, okay, calm down. Shouyou wasn’t going to get any better if Kenma just had another anxiety attack. With shaky hands, he hastily drew a rune in the air in front of him. As soon as he did so, he felt a wave of calm wash over him. It was an artificial feeling, the thrums of anxiety from a powerful witch like Kenma still present underneath the peace, but it would have to do for now.
Heart now beating at a normal rate, he surveyed Shouyou carefully, making note of all the physical injuries first. The gash on his forehead was wide and deep, bleeding rapidly and getting Shouyou’s hair and face all sticky. Other than that, there weren’t any other visible wounds, aside from a few scrapes on his hands and knees, and possible bruising. He seemed to be breathing normally, so there was probably no internal organ damage. Okay. Kenma could work with that.
Then there was the fact that Shouyou was a human, who had been touched by a shadow man. Kenma racked his memory, trying to think of the possible side effects that shadow men had on humans. He couldn’t think of any.
Groaning, he rubbed his eyes with the back of his hands. It was way too late at night to be dealing with any of this — if it hadn’t been for that stupid shadow man, Kenma would be curled up in bed by now, probably with a nice sleeping charm placed over him, dreaming about video games and cute kittens and maybe, if he was lucky, Shouyou.
Better just do a general healing spell if I can’t think of anything, he thought.
Mustering up the last bits of strength left over from the potion, he cracked his knuckles and began.
He recited the words loudly, focusing all of his energy into what he was saying, pouring all of his power into the foreign sounds, and then stretched his hands in front of him. He performed a series of motions, quickly and evidently practiced, and then lowered his arms.
The spell worked efficiently and successfully. Immediately after Kenma had performed it, the cut on Shouyou’s head was already beginning to close up, the blood flow was trickling to a halt, and the pricks of red on his knees were fading. From the looks of it, he was beginning to stir as well, his eyelids fluttering just the slightest.
For good measure, Kenma leaned over and took one of Shouyou’s hands in his own, drawing a healing rune on Shouyou’s palm. The rune twinkled, then melted into black, and sank into Shouyou’s skin, making it look as if he had been tattooed.
When Kenma looked up, he found Shouyou staring back at him, conscious and eyes wide.
“So it wasn’t a dream,” He said, voice barely above a whisper.
Kenma felt his cheeks flush with embarrassment. With a wave of his hands, the candles blew out, Shouyou let out a yelp, and then the lights of the bathroom flickered on. A wave of exhaustion flowed through Kenma’s veins. Maybe he should’ve just walked over and flipped the light switch like a regular person instead of trying to show off.
Shouyou was still gawking at him, mouth pursed into a frown of some sorts, confusion painting his face and making his forehead look all scrunched, the scar on it wrinkling up.
“I — You — The shadow...” Shouyou trailed off hesitantly.
“Yeah,” Kenma breathed, shrinking away from Shouyou’s gaze out of fear. Being looked at that way by Shouyou didn’t feel good. “That happened...”
There was a pause of a few seconds or so, as Shouyou clearly struggled to find the right words to say what he was thinking. Kenma had all but curled in on himself, mind whirling, the effects of the calming rune having faded almost completely after he’d done what he had to do.
Shouyou will probably think I’m a freak, Kenma thought miserably. He’ll think I’m a freak, and then he’ll tell everybody who’s at this camp that there’s something wrong with me, and I’ll get kicked off of the team, and nobody will want to be around me except for Kuroo, except then he might get estranged too, and we’ll just be this pair of socially unaccepted witches, and then everyone will figure out that we can do magic and they’ll become so afraid of us that they’ll probably bring back those witch trials, and I’ll totally be burned at the stake—
He was shaken out of his thoughts when Shouyou spoke.
“How can you... Do that?” His eyes were fixed on Kenma, who really wish he would look at something else, literally anything else, they were in a bathroom with a bunch of crude graffiti for Christ’s sake, maybe take a look at that.
“Do what?” He mumbled.
“You know!” Shouyou gestured around vaguely, eyes ablaze with a sort of intensity that worried Kenma, because he couldn’t tell if it was good or bad. “Turn on the lights without touching the switch, draw stuff in the air, and on my hand, and blow up shadows like gwah, which was totally the coolest part, by the way!”
Kenma stilled. Had he just heard correctly? Had Shouyou just said cool?
“You thought it was cool...?” He said hesitantly.
Shouyou blinked. “Well, duh,” He said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, yes Kenma, almost getting killed by a shadow man and finding out that your friend has magical powers unbeknownst to you is super amazing and definitely not suspicious or life-threatening, let’s do it again next Thursday!
“It was kinda scary at first, but I’ve never seen anything like it!” Shouyou added.
He was grinning now, grinning so widely that Kenma almost winced imagining how many face muscles he must’ve used.
“Oh...” Kenma began. He cleared his throat, which was starting to get a bit raspy. “Well, I’m a witch.” He said dumbly, unsure of any other way to put it.
Shouyou’s mouth dropped open, his eyes practically shining. He sat upright just then, still gaping, and stared at Kenma straight on, who turned red. Shouyou observed him, eyes tracing all over his face, taking in every detail, while Kenma wanted to positively die from embarrassment.
Shouyou reached up and poked Kenma’s cheek. Kenma flinched.
“Sorry, sorry!” Shouyou withdrew his finger immediately, flapping his hands in apology. “Sorry, I should’ve asked to touch you, sorry. I just — you look so normal.”
Kenma arched an eyebrow.
“Well, yeah,” He muttered. “Witches are the same as humans, you know. Physically, I mean. We have all of the same organs and stuff. We can just do magic.”
“Whoa. So that’s what all that was, magic?”
“Yeah...”
“What’s this, then?” Shouyou held up his hand, opening it so that his palm faced Kenma.
“It’s a healing rune. I gave you one to be safe, because I’m not so sure how well my healing spell worked. It’ll go away on its own in a few days.”
Shouyou frowned suddenly, reaching up to feel his forehead. Kenma watched as Shouyou pressed the pads of his fingertips against his forehead, moving them around slowly, until they reached his scar, and then his eyebrows shot up almost all the way to his hairline.
“Is my head okay?!” He blurted, now rubbing at his head frantically. “There’s a mark there, or something!”
Kenma, not quite sure what to do with a human panicking due to magical reasons, felt himself begin to worry. He reached over and yanked Shouyou’s hands off of his forehead, gripping them tightly so that Shouyou couldn’t pull away.
His hands are soft, Kenma thought faintly. And warm.
“It’s just a scar, Shouyou.” He said. “I used a general healing spell, so it left one.”
Shouyou’s thumb moved over Kenma’s skin gently. It felt nice. Soothing, even, to the drained Kenma.
“What’s a general healing spell?” Shouyou cocked his head to the side.
“It’s... It’s like...” Kenma wasn’t used to explaining these kinds of things to someone who had no idea what they were. He pretended like he was opening all of the files in his mind, thumbing through the tabs of manila folders, searching for the right words to string together to get Shouyou to understand.
“It’s the spell that witches use when we don’t know what exactly is wrong with someone.” Kenma started slowly. “It fixes internal and external bleeding and repairs injuries or diseases to an extent. Including mental ones. Because it’s so generalized, though, it can’t completely heal everything. To heal something specific, like an illness or something, you’d use a medical spell or remedy more suited to that.”
That was probably the most words Kenma had ever said in one go.
“Wow!” Shouyou’s eyes resembled saucers. Then, “Why didn’t you just use something suited for head wounds, then?”
“I couldn’t remember the effects that shadow men have on humans. There’s probably something other than just your forehead that it affected, like your brain or fatigue levels or something. I’m not sure.” Out of curiosity, Kenma added, “Are you feeling unusually tired or anything?”
“Definitely.”
“Yeah. That’ll be gone by morning, probably, because you’ve got the spell and the rune. The spell should make sure that everything heals naturally, but I added the rune to make sure that it does.”
Kenma hadn’t realized that he was still holding Shouyou’s hands until he found himself rubbing small circles on them with his thumb. Quickly, he let go.
Shouyou’s voice suddenly become quiet, his gaze dropping to the floor. “And... What was that thing? The... Shadow man?”
Kenma inhaled sharply. Shouyou was nervous now, he could sense it, could feel it crackling in the air as it had been earlier, before he’d defeated the shadow man.
“Shadow men are these... Beings that follow someone around. They observe them, and mimic their movements, until eventually, they can break apart from the person they’re following, and become sentient. Then, they just go around terrorizing the world, basically.”
“Terrorizing the world...” Shouyou shuddered.
“Yeah... They’re usually sent by someone, too.” Kenma paused. “You don’t have to worry about the one that was following you, though. I got rid of it.”
“Sent by someone...?”
Kenma shifted a bit in his position on the floor, exhaustion beginning to sink into his body, seeping into his bones gradually. He had used way, way too much magic for one day, and it was starting to take a toll on him.
“Yeah.”
“Was mine sent by someone?” Shouyou didn’t look any less worried.
“Yeah...”
“Who?”
Kenma closed his eyes, thinking that if he kept them open any longer, he’d hunch over and fall right asleep. Also because he couldn’t stand seeing Shouyou looking so horrified.
“Someone who wants to get back at me.”
Silence.
Kenma cracked open an eye, to see Shouyou looking at him expectantly. There was a curious gleam in his eyes, one that was silently begging Kenma to elaborate on his last point.
Sleep was beginning to worm its way into his thoughts, though, and he tried to muster up some concentration, but he really just couldn’t.
Kenma sighed. “I’ll tell you more about it tomorrow, Shouyou. I’m way too tired right now...”
Shouyou pouted. That motherfucker, he actually pouted, lower lip jutted out and puppy eyes widened almost comically. Kenma’s heart twinged, because Shouyou was too cute for his own good, really, but it wasn’t enough to convince him. Kenma was literally going to keel right over and collapse if he kept this up for much longer.
He stood up carefully, trying his best to maintain his balance, and then offered a hand to Shouyou, figuring that he was probably too weak to walk by himself.
Sure enough, Shouyou struggled to stand, hand clenching Kenma’s so tightly that Kenma was almost sure it was cutting off his circulation. Shouyou wobbled unsteadily, knees nearly buckling underneath him, before Kenma reluctantly put a small balancing spell on the younger boy. He felt the fatigue settle into him even more, and he forced his eyelids to stay open. Had it been anyone other than Shouyou, he probably wouldn’t have bothered wasting more magic.
Together, they hobbled out of the room, and into the hallway, arms around each other’s waists, both using the other for support. The remnants of Kenma’s potions, as well as the rest of his ingredients and notes, were left on the floor. He’d get them tomorrow morning, he noted, almost positive that no one would use the bathroom. It was very much out of the way and impractical, and besides, there were toilets located in each of the bedrooms anyways.
Kenma dropped off Shouyou first, the two of them stumbling around in the dark trying to get to Shouyou’s sleeping bag. He had been uncharacteristically silent for the entire walk here, and Kenma had chalked it up to weariness and exhaustion, but the look in his eyes made it clear that it was something else entirely.
He felt guilt creep up in his throat, as he took in the large, afraid pupils of Shouyou. Kenma swallowed nervously.
“It’s okay, Shouyou,” He murmured, not quite sure how to comfort someone. “I protected this entire training center when we first got here. It was only the shadow man I couldn’t get rid of.”
That didn’t seem to ease Shouyou’s concern at all, the frightened look still firmly in place.
“Kenma...” He whispered. “I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep tonight...”
Kenma‘s fingers tingled of their own accord.
Leaning over, he hovered his hands above Shouyou, twisting them into a few intricate positions, then muttering a few words. As he did so, Shouyou’s eyelids fluttered shut, his breathing grew steady, the scared look on his face began to fade away.
By the time Kenma left, body consumed with nothing but exhaustion, Shouyou had been fast asleep, hopefully dreaming about something nice, if Kenma had performed the spell correctly. It was possible that he hadn’t, considering he was swaying from side to side as he exited, and his vision was swimming before him.
I’m not going to make it to the Nekoma room, he thought absentmindedly, as he collapsed onto the hardwood floor of the hallway outside. Using the last bit of his energy, he folded his arms underneath his head in a pillow, then fell into a dreamless slumber.
*
When Kenma awoke, it was because he was being jostled by the hard, plastic toe of a sneaker.
Letting out a low groan, he rolled over on his side, feeling a bit cold, trying to get comfortable on this mattress that was really fucking hard, what the fuck, hands searching for the blanket, the sneaker digging painfully into his side, when he smacked his head onto the wall.
Eyes popping open with surprise, he found himself lying on the floor of the hallway, curled up next to the wall, Kuroo’s sneaker wedged underneath his ribcage.
As Kenma blinked blearily at the lights that were now illuminating the hallway, Kuroo leaned over him, face pinched in worry.
“Kenma? Are you okay?”
And then Kenma remembered why he was lying on the floor in the first place, the events of the previous night rushing back to him all at once, and he groaned so loudly that he was pretty sure he heard rustling from inside the Karasuno room.
“‘m fine, Kuro.” He closed his eyes again, rolling back over to snuggle with the wall again.
Kenma reached down then, grabbing Kenma by the back of his collar, and yanked him into an upright, sitting position.
“Don’t make me use a wakefulness spell on you,” He threatened, tone biting and completely serious.
Kenma groaned again for the nth time, slapping his hands over his face in exasperation.
“Please, no more magic,” He moaned miserably. “I’ll die if I do anything else.”
“Yeah, that’s why I’m waking you up, dummy.” Kuroo sat down beside Kenma. “I got up for my early morning run just now, and saw that you weren’t in the room, and felt that the air has so much magic in it that it stinks, Kenma, seriously, what’d you do?”
Kenma leaned his head on Kuroo’s shoulder for support. Moral, and otherwise. Taking an experimental whiff of the air around him, he found that yeah, okay, the scent of magic was extremely overpowering.
“Don’t judge me.”
“I won’t make promises I can’t keep.”
“I accidentally outed myself as a witch to Shouyou when trying to defeat his shadow man. And then he got hurt, and I wasted all of my energy healing him.”
The look on Kuroo’s face was a mixture of both amusement and concern, and Kenma could tell by the awkward twist of his mouth that he was trying to keep a laugh in.
Sighing, Kenma took a deep breath and launched into a retelling of the whole tale, start to finish, overridden with details, and Kuroo alternated between laughing at him and chiming in with obnoxious mini lectures that left Kenma with the strong urge to hex him. By the end of it, Kuroo was practically howling with laughter, no doubt having woken up half of the Karasuno team by now. Kenma watched him distastefully, lip curled with disgust, until Kuroo calmed down enough, turning deadly serious.
“Kenma, you need to tell me next time before you go around trying to defeat these things.”
Kenma averted his eyes. “Sorry.” He mumbled, not actually feeling very sorry at all. Sure, making Kuroo worry tugged at his heartstrings a bit, but Kenma’s plan would always be more important.
“No, I’m serious. I could at least keep everybody away from where you’re working, so no one else gets hurt. Now you’re gonna have to deal with Shrimpy asking you a bunch of questions, and ultimately getting involved with a world that he shouldn’t even know about.”
Kenma shrugged. “He’ll be fine. We live far away, we won’t see each other much.”
“Kenma, you’re avoiding what I’m really saying. Tell me next time, okay?”
“Okay.”
“I know you’re just saying that to get me to shut up, but I mean it. I care about you, Kenma. If something happened to you, I wouldn’t know what to do.”
When Kenma didn’t respond, Kuroo continued. “Just think if it were the other way around. You wouldn’t want me to keep everything a secret from you, right?”
Jesus. Kuroo knew how to get to him good.
“I guess not...”
“Then we’re on the same page!” Kuroo slapped Kenma’s knee gently, grinning widely.
Sensing how uncomfortable Kenma was, Kuroo changed the subject once he’d gotten his point across. “Did you clean up after yourself last night?” He asked.
Kenma shook his head.
“It’s in the bathroom, right? I’ll stop by there on my room and do a quick organization spell.”
“You don’t have to...” Kenma mumbled.
“You need rest, Kenma. I’m not stupid, I know that you’ll have to clean all that up manually since you can’t do magic right now. Just let me do it, and go back to sleep.”
Kenma opened his mouth to protest, but as soon as he did so, Kuroo scooped him up in his arms bridal style, whistling as he began to make his way to the Nekoma room. Kenma tried to fight against it for a few seconds, wriggling in his arms in an ineffective way to escape, but the steady thumps of Kuroo’s feet against the ground were kind of calming, and he felt himself relax in Kuroo’s arms.
“When I get my strength back, I’m going to hex you so bad that you won’t be able to play volleyball for an entire week.” He mumbled sleepily.
Kuroo huffed out a laugh. “Sure thing.”
And then he was setting Kenma down in his sleeping bag, and saying some words in a hushed breath that Kenma instantly recognized, and then the sleeping spell hit him, and he was out like a light.
*
Hinata hadn’t seen Kenma all morning.
He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing, really, because at first, he’d woken up from what was hands down the best sleep of his life, feeling extremely doubtful. But then he’d seen the rune still imprinted on his palm, and the rugged scar adorning his forehead, and the dried blood still in his hair, and he swept away the uncertainty pretty quickly.
Only then, he’d become kind of scared, because what had happened last night had been terrifying — super cool, but terrifying all the same. Both the shadow man and Kenma had been intensely powerful, in a way that Hinata knew he could never be, in a way that rivaled what it felt like to be on a volleyball court.
His mind was buzzing with all sorts of thoughts, eyes unfocused as he sat down to breakfast, barely taking in any of his surroundings. He kept replaying the conversation with Kenma in his head, trying to absorb everything like a sponge, although it had already been ingrained into his brain. One question kept coming back to him, though, the question of Who wants to get revenge on Kenma?
He shoved a spoonful of breakfast into his mouth, not really tasting it, and not really caring. He was currently elsewhere, in a place where witches and shadow people and magic existed, in a world where he had gotten severely injured the night before as a result of all that, and probably almost died.
He reached up, as if on reflex, to run his fingers over his scar again. It was kind of ugly, he mused, but it also kind of made him look badass.
Nishinoya rudely and loudly interrupted his train of thought.
“Woah, Shouyou, what happened to you?”
Hinata glanced up, met Nishinoya’s half-impressed, half-concerned eyes, then shrugged.
“Fell down.” He said.
“Dumbass!” Kageyama hissed at him. “Why are you going and getting yourself injured at a time like this?”
Hinata glared at him. “It wasn’t my fault, stupid!”
Kageyama rolled his eyes. “Yeah, sure it wasn’t.”
Hinata didn’t bother firing back a retort like he normally would. He had greater things to worry about, he thought as he mentally dismissed Kageyama. He touched his scar once more, and then let his hand fall on the table.
He didn’t think anything of this small action, mind already turning its attention back to the crazy magical universe, but apparently, Kageyama did.
“Hinata.” He barked fiercely. Fiercely enough that Hinata snapped his eyes up to meet Kageyama, who was suddenly staring daggers at Hinata. Or rather, Hinata’s palm.
“Huh? What’re you looking at?”
Hinata began to pull his hand back, a bit confused, but before he could, Kageyama lunged across the table and seized it.
“Ow! What are you doing, idiot?” Hinata cried, attempting to withdraw his hand, but failing due to Kageyama’s iron grip.
“How did you get this?” Kageyama asked darkly, bringing Hinata’s palm up to his face and examining it.
Oh. The rune.
“What?! Why do you care? It’s none of your business!”
Kageyama’s was starting to hurt him, he was holding on so tightly. Not to mention that the look in his eyes was pretty scary, too. Nishinoya was staring at them from the side, panic written all over his face.
“I care because you don’t know what this means, dumbass, and it’s dangerous!”
Hinata felt a flare of annoyance. What was Kageyama talking about?
“Dangerous?! It’s not dangerous, and I absolutely do know what it means, thank you very much!” He snapped, yanking his hand backwards and actually succeeding in loosening Kageyama’s grip. Another yank, and his hand was free.
Angrily, Kageyama stood up from his seat, pushing his chair in roughly. He walked over to behind Hinata, grabbed the back of his shirt, and pulled him so that he was standing up, shouting protests and insults that were garbling together in Hinata’s mind.
Kageyama dragged him away from the table, until eventually Hinata pushed him off and was following him of his own accord, grumbling under his breath about how stupid this all was, how stupid Kageyama was. He really had no idea what this was all about. Kageyama had seen the rune, and was now claiming it was dangerous? There was no way that it was, because first of all, Kenma wouldn’t ever try to harm him, and second of all, Kageyama had no way of knowing anything about it.
He’d probably just seen something similar on the internet somewhere, Hinata tried to reason with his worrying self. Yes, that’s it, he saw a symbol that looked kind of like it on some terrible demonic website or something, and now he thinks I’m in danger, only I’m not because this is a healing rune, supposed to make me feel better.
Right? Kenma wouldn’t hurt him… Right?
They reached a secluded area, behind the wall of a room that wasn’t currently in use. Kageyama, scowl and glare ever-permanent on his face, shoved Hinata against the wall violently.
“Tell me,” He hissed. “Where you got that rune.”
Hinata felt as if he’d been dunked into ice-filled water.
“R-rune?” He stammered. “You know that it’s a… Rune?”
The color drained from Kageyama’s face as he realized what he’d just said, and he backed away from Hinata frantically, hands clasped over his mouth in mild horror.
“I-I mean, I know that it’s one, too!” Hinata added quickly.
Kageyama eyed him warily, hesitantly lowering his hands.
“It’s not dangerous, though!” Hinata said. “It’s for healing!”
“Who told you that?” Kageyama blurted, still looking incredibly suspicious.
“Um.” Hinata paused. What was he supposed to do, rat out Kenma like that? “A witch?”
Hinata figured that logically, Kageyama should know about witches, since he’d known about runes, right? He expected to see some flicker of recognition behind his dark eyes, and then to maybe sit down and have a good, hearty conversation about what it was like being a human who knew about the magical world.
Instead, Kageyama simply stared at him, pupils widening in shock, as if Hinata were some foreign alien that had just dropped out of its spaceship.
And then, “What other witches are there around here?! I thought I was the only one!”
It was Hinata’s turn to stare, mouth suddenly dropping open as he struggled to process the words that had just come out of Kageyama’s mouth.
Just how much did he know, exactly, about everyone around him?