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Hinata isn’t sure if he’ll be able to make it through practice.
His body aches. He’s tired of hearing Ennoshita’s voice and Kageyama is taunting the first years. His head feels murky and his brain hurts. He wants to go home, he wants to talk to his boyfriend and fall asleep to the soft tones of his voice over the phone, awaiting the spring tourney to see him once again.
“Hey! No slacking off!” Tanaka barks as Hinata trudges towards his bottle of water. He sneers and asks, “What are you in such a bad mood for?”
“I’m just tired,” The boy murmurs in reply.
Kageyama shakes his head. “You’re always tired, lately. You need to eat more and sleep more.”
Hinata knew his teammate and best friend was right, but he didn’t want to admit it. He knew the real reason he was so tired was that he had stayed up all night, every night this week on face calls with his boyfriend. The two of them with their noses against the camera, whispering about volleyball and gossip and teammates and everything in between. Hinata sighed. Long distance relationships were hard.
“Take a nap when you get home,” Nishinoya offers as he walks over to join the second years and Tanaka. “You need to be in your best shape so we can make it to nationals again this year!”
Hinata grins and thinks about his boy. Seeing him in person again, competing against him, watching the chemistry between their teams work out against them…
Kageyama takes a seat on the ground, sitting against the cool gym wall. Hinata slides down to sit beside him, both boys drinking their water. Practice wasn’t officially over, but Coach Ukai had just left and Ennoshita was having the new first years help him clean up.
Hinata rests as Nishinoya and Tanaka bicker ahead of him and Kageyama. He hears shuffling and the dark murmur of Tsukishima’s voice as it calls out for their third years to help him. He doesn’t mind it much. He hears the doors to the gymnasium open, followed by the sweet melody of Yachi’s voice saying, “Hello, everyone!”
He opens his eyes and rests his cheek on Kageyama’s shoulder. The setter doesn’t mind, he’s too busy crinkling his eyes in confusion at the large bouquet of roses that Yachi holds in her hands. “Who gave you those?” He calls out to the girl, who makes her way towards the second years.
“They’re not for me,” she says, ignoring the chortling behind her of Noya and Tanaka, convinced she has a secret admirer. “They’re for Shouyou.”
Nishinoya and Tanaka stop yelling dead in their tracks. “Hinata?” Noya asks, shocked. “Hinata has a secret admirer?”
Tanaka sputters, “Roses are for girls!”
Yachi shoots him a glare. “These are for Hinata, Ryuu. They even came with a card.”
Hinata hopes dearly that it isn’t a secret admirer as Yachi hands him the bouquet, a smile plastered to her face and a glimmer in her eyes.
Hinata sets the roses in his lap and opens the card that sat in the bulbs, noticing the familiar chicken scratch handwriting; he’s smiling as he reads.
Hiya Shouyou!
I’ve been thinking about you a lot and I really like talking to you, I just wish we could be a lot closer, yknow? I would love to take you on dates all the time and have you meet my dog and I want to meet your sister and do stupid things with you. But that’s really hard since we live so far apart. I miss you a lot, but there’s no way I would ever want to be with anyone else but you. So I bought and had these delivered to you so at least you had something to show for me until I come up to Miyagi again. I love you, Sho!!!
Hoshiumi
(P.S., I kissed the bottom left corner of the card.)
Hinata can’t help but crack a wide grin as he reads, fingers brushing over all of the penciled hearts that Hoshiumi has drawn literally everywhere. There was barely any empty card space. Hinata shut out everyone around him and brushed his fingertips over the bottom left corner before putting it to his lips and kissing it as well, smiling all the while.
Kageyama tries to read over Hinata’s shoulder, but it doesn’t work and he huffs. “Who is that from? Do you have a girlfriend that I don’t know about?”
Hinata shakes his head. He whispers for only Kageyama to hear, “It’s from my boyfriend.”
Kageyama scrunches his eyebrows. “Who?”
“Do you remember Hoshiumi?” Hinata whispers, holding the card close to his chest. “We played his team, Kamomedai, at nationals last year. We lost to them.”
Kageyama cocks an eyebrow. “Your boyfriend is the little giant?”
Only Kageyama said it loud enough for everyone to hear. Tanaka snapped his head around and from across the court Nishinoya yelled, “WHOOOOOOO?”
The two flew over to the first years like individual Sonic the Hedgehogs. Yamaguchi tuned in to listen, tapping Tsukishima’s shoulder so he would listen as well. Ennoshita stayed completely ignoring, however, and continued to yell at the first years.
“You have a boyfriend ?” Tanaka shouted. It grabbed the attention of some of the first years, but Ennoshita held their focus by smacking one of the boys with a broom. Tanaka ignores the scene and asks, “Bro, you’re gay ?”
Hinata blushes. “Is there something wrong with that?”
In his confused state, Nishinoya plucks the letter from Hinata’s hands and begins to read it—not without any protest from Hinata though.
“Give it back! It’s mine!”
“Hoshiumi…,” Kageyama mutters, his brain still trying to process the situation.
Tanaka skips over to Nishinoya and leans over his shoulder to read. Hinata stands up and tries to barrel into Nishinoya, but the boy swiftly moves aside and diverts it. “Aw, this is so cute,” Nishinoya chortles.
Tanaka twists his face up ugily and Hinata frowns at him. “Is something wrong, Ryuu?” He asks, snatching his card back from Noya and picking up his bouquet of roses. “Don’t invade my personal life again,” he says to the boys, back turned to Kageyama.
Yamaguchi watches the scene from afar, a light smile on his lips. He turns to Tsukishima and asks, “That’s cute, isn’t it?”
Tsukishima shakes his head. “I don’t really care about Hinata’s endeavors.”
Yamaguchi rolls his eyes.
Tanaka doesn’t say anything—he’s too busy thinking. But Nishinoya has bright eyes and a sparkling smile as he tells Hinata, “I want to meet him!”
“You already have,” Kageyama blurts from the wall where he sits.
Nishinoya looks blankly at him—as if he’s not following. Which he’s not. Like, at all.
“Hoshiumi—the little giant. We lost to them last year. His school is Kamomedai.”
Only then does it click in Nishinoya and Tanaka’s heads. Nishinoya makes an ‘O’ with his mouth and puts his hands in his hair. “Your boyfriend is the little giant?”
“Yes! We already said that!” Hinata replies, absolutely exasperated.
Tanaka purses his lips. “He’s not even that attractive.”
Hinata grits his teeth. “You’re straight. You have no input on my relationship.”
Nishinoya beams at Hinata. “We’ll have to make it to Nationals so we can play them again! And I can meet him!”
Hinata smiles. “He might be coming up to Miyagi next month…”
Nishinoya smiles. “I wish I had a girlfriend who bought me flowers. That’s so romantic,” he swoons.
Kageyama nods solemnly. “If I had a girlfriend, I wouldn’t even think to send her flowers. Especially if she lived a lot of hours away.”
Hinata giggles and holds the flowers close, the card in his hand. He smiles. “I guess I just have a really, really great boyfriend.”