Chapter Text
To say Kageyama Tobio was a talented player would be an understatement. A brilliant setter, he was crucial in many of Karasuno’s victories. Which is why it was strange.
It was strange that the usually brilliant setter was making blatant rookie mistakes and fumbling his way through routine practices.
This gave the captain, Sawamura Daichi, a massive headache. If it was just Kageyama messing up, there wouldn't be too much of a problem, the ever-reliable setter Sugawara Koushi would make up for it. But it was not just one of his regulars suddenly acting like they barely touched a volleyball, it was two.
Tsukishima Kei was a shoe-in as a regular on the team due to this staggering height of 190cm. He wasn’t put on the team just for being a relative giant though, he was a skilled up-and-coming blocker. But here he was, jumping a second too late or almost stumbling over after leaping up several times now.
But if anyone were to ask them if there was anything wrong at all, both would deny it vehemently. Such an example happened earlier with a curious Hinata Shouyou, after failing to hit an admittedly poorly set ball, came running up to Kageyama who was panting heavily.
“Kageyama! What’s wrong?!”, he yelled at the setter who was now crouching down. Normally he would take this failure as a chance to push in some snide remark that would remind you of Tsukishima but the look on Kageyama’s face drained the color off Hinata’s face.
“Kagaeyama, are you dying?!”
But before Hinata could fuss over him more, Kageyama shoved him aside with all the strength he could muster and muttered out a “Mind your own business, dumbass” before shuffling away.
On the other side of the court, a similar incident was happening with a worried and indignant Yamaguchi Tadashii fussing over Tsukishima.
“Tsukki! Stop telling me to shut up! You need to go to the infirmary!”
But all of Yamaguchi’s nagging fell on deaf ears, Tsukishima was determined to get his best friend (though he would never admit he thought of him that way) off his back. The last thing he needed was Yamaguchi worrying over him. Yamaguchi wasn’t scared of Tsukishima like how Hinata was of Kageyama, so he stayed right behind Tsukishima even with him pushing him stubbornly away.
Tsukishima could feel it rising up, the soft petals pushing up against his throat, struggling to break free from him. He used up all his might to push it back down but he knew he couldn’t hold it down much longer, so when he laid his eyes on the cheery first-year manager of his team, his tired brain sparked a brilliant idea.
He turned back at his nagger of a friend and could hardly contain his smirk, which was truthfully a half-wince thanks to the pain. “Yachi is looking for you.” he said, knowing Yamaguchi will bite the bait. And bite he did, hard.
“Y-Y-Yacchan?!”, he sputtered out and instinctively turned to look at the girl who gave a brilliant smile back. That lapse of attention was enough for Tsukishima to give him the slip. You can always count on crushes to make people into bigger fools, he thought smugly to himself, but as the glow of self-satisfaction from tricking his friend faded, there was nothing to distract himself from the pain growing in his chest.
In an alleyway between the school gym and another building, a bright red flower popped out. One, two, they kept blooming into the beautiful flowers they were, as they fell from the haggard boy’s mouth and onto the ground. His glasses had dropped to the ground from the violent motions of his cough, the brilliant red of the flowers blurred together from the view of his imperfect vision. He looked like he had coughed up a puddle of blood rather than a mess of flowers. But what these deadly plumage signified was exactly the same as blood; his impending death.
Hanahaki, even the thought of the name of the disease had left a sour taste in Tsukishima’s mouth. He’d rather get a heart disease or whatever is killing most of the population now, rather than this humiliation of a disease. Crushes make people into bigger fools indeed, if Yamaguchi was a fool then he must be a total dumbass. He felt the ground for his glasses, groping petals along the way. Each touch with the petals, made him grimace, it made him face the reality of his disease. After a few moments, he completed his little hunt and restored his sight. He got more than a shock right after that though, what he assumed to be mere petals, were full-bloomed flowers, Amaryllises, he recognized. The common knowledge was that full-bloomed flowers didn’t have much time left, and neither did he.
This hallowing realization has him stumbling out of the alleyway, lost deep in his own mind. Trapped in a nightmare of his own thoughts, he hadn’t realized he had bumped into someone else till he actually hit the ground. In typical Tsukki fashion, he was about to cuss that clumsy bastard out, that was until he realized who that bastard was.
Kageyama.
Now he wanted to cuss him out even more. He expected the usual combative Kageyama, but all he got from him after he had rubbed his head was a “Look where you’re going, dumbass.” before he weakly got up and walked away. Tsukishima was irritated. He was the last person he wanted to see, well, who wanted to see the source of all their problems anyway? His attention was shifted away when he saw a red petal where Kageyama had landed and hoped desperately that the setter hadn’t spotted it.
After all, there were no red flowers in school, other than ones coming out of a love-sick boy.
Unbeknownst to him, there was another source of all the flowers.
Kageyama cursed under his breath. He had no idea what to feel. In the first few weeks of his suffering, he was sure that he was coughing up lumps of conjugated blood. He hadn’t suspected they were flowers at all, though they were soft to touch and pleasant to smell. But not like Kageyama was the brightest when it came to things outside of his expertise. Hanahaki, it was the first he ever heard of it. It didn’t have anything to do with volleyball after all. All he could do was stare at his doctor, dumb-founded when the news was broken to him. A disease of unrequited love? What is love anyway? And the biggest question he thought to himself, who exactly did he love?
So he went, to unburden all these questions on to his ever-reliable senior, Sugawara.
Sugawara was a little startled at first when his junior abruptly pulled him to a corner and expected a volleyball related question. Hence he had an utter look of bewilderment when he heard,
“What is love?” coming from his junior who had a completely genuine and serious face on him.
“Is this a reference to that old meme?” was what Sugawara reflexively said in return. Kageyama tilted his head, he didn’t understand what he meant but decided he should provide some form of context.
Throughout Kageyama’s explanation, Sugawara made a range of expression that went from shock to mild delight to sadness, all mirroring what he felt. He never expected his straight-minded volleyball freak of a junior would fall in love, not at this stage in his life at least. He was amused that even Kageyama could get into the springtime of his youth and he was certainly sad at the prospect of him losing his life. Finally, he expressed understanding, it would explain how he much he had to sub for Kageyama lately even if he was slightly slyly happy about the extra court time. His mind wandered off a bit to his other junior who also has been underperforming lately but forced his thoughts back to first deal with one in front of him.
As much as he greatly wanted to help Kageyama, how could he give advice on his unrequited love when the boy himself had no clue. He shrugged to himself, the only way was to wing it then. “Well,” he dragged out that word as he put a hand on his chin to demonstrate that he's thinking, “love is a complicated feeling but usually, it's the person you can’t take your eyes off, the one who you think is like your ray of sunshine, someone who you want to be yours.”
Kageyama nodded after each point, with an absolute look of sincerity in taking all the advice in.
Wanting to lighten the mood for a bit, and maybe even just to fool around; Sugawara, with a gleam in his eye, said with a slightly cocky grin, “I mean I would know, I’m quite the casanova y’know?” and in return, Kageyama’s eyes lit up like he hit the jackpot. To think his senior was even more reliable in these matters than he thought. Sugawara gulped, he could tell from that glint that Kageyama bought it all but he didn’t want to suddenly take it back and dash his hopes like that, despite his only experience being that one time in elementary school where he held a girl’s hand on a field trip. When the teachers told them to. Well its probably harmless to let him believe this, right?
Kageyama, taking all of Sugawara’s advice to heart, walked back into the gymnasium, ready for more practice, and more importantly, observation. He willed his breathless body into action. As he struggled to keep up during practice, his mind was also in overdrive as to who met all the mentioned points.
As Kageyama was doing his little investigation, Tsukishima couldn't help his eyes from wandering to the aforementioned setter. He cursed at himself from doing that time and again, while forcing himself to focus on the other practice team on the opposing side, he was the blocker after all. But like a train wreck, he couldn't tear his eyes away, and each glance at the sight of him sent a twang of pain through his chest, as if the flowers were struggling to burst out again. Even as much as he was observing Kageyama, his lagged body could not move out of the way in time when Kageyama came tumbling down on him after a misstep.
Their chests pressed together and their legs entangled; Kageyama was, in summary, wholly on top of Tsukishima, where the latter was struggling with utmost effort to not show that he was fully enjoying the contact. His ears red, he tried to sputter out a usual sassy remark but all that came out was a rather weak “dumbass”, complete with an arm trying to desperately hide his face. “That’s a classic Tsundere pose.” thought Yamaguchi who witnessed the entire thing up to this moment. He paused for a few moments as if taking this new bit of information in. After which, he looked as if he had a lightbulb flash moment, he had Tsukki figured out. Now he just has to help him.
Back to the center of the mess, Kageyama shot back a rather defiant, “No, you’re the dumbass!”, even though he knew full well he was the one at fault. But Tsukishima just brought out this side of him more than anyone else did. Tsukishima just made irritates him and makes him mad, which must also be why his whole face feels hot, he reasoned. Before he could get more heated, Hinata interrupted him with questions filled with concern. From Kageyama’s view, looking up to Hinata, from the ground, the light from the ceiling of the gymnasium made his orange hair looked as if it was glowing.
Kageyama squinted. It set some gears turning in his head before he annoyedly swatted Hinata away who in return yelled that ‘Kageyama was acting like he’s king again!” and started swatting back.
This then set of Tsukishima who begrudgingly felt jealousy towards their interaction. Luckily the situation was quickly diffused; “Alright, alright, no arguments”, Daichi chided them with an exasperated expression while picking them both up by the arms. Dealing with not one, but two regulars acting like newborn fawns was stressing him out. “I want to pull you both out-”, but before Daichi could even complete his sentence, Kageyama began to protest but the captain raised a hand to stop his oncoming tirade. “But I know you both want to practice but the moment another accident occurs, practice is over for the both of you, got it?” He ended with a ‘smile’ that sent shivers up their spines. The captain can always be counted on to set his kids straight.
During the rest of the practice, Kageyama tried to pierce the remaining ‘clues’ together. He was doing way more thinking about something non-volleyball related than he usually does. He had no idea if he was drenched in cold sweat from all this thinking or from his stamina rapidly draining. It was most definitely the latter but to Kageyama, the first was a likely option. Feeling as if he was an ace detective, he mentally linked back to the points Sugawara imparted on him to what he observed.
He noticed his eyes always going to a certain someone he wanted to toss to and he wanted that someone to be ‘his’ weapon. It made sense, he always tracked him with his eyes and wanted him to be his in a way, that person even glowed like sunshine (though that was more due to his hair colour than anything). Kageyama felt like a detective who cracked a mystery, he stopped dead in his tracks, his mouth forming the shape of an ‘O’. One of the sides of his fist hits the other hand’s palm, signaling that he got it. He had his deduction.
Hinata is the cause. Hinata is his love.