Chapter Text
Love tends to be a difficult thing for many people. It’s a sudden gut-punch, a whirlwind, a slow ascension, a long walk off a short pier, a scrapbook, a pile of forgotten things in the corner of the attic. Everything and nothing all at the same time. Something that can change in an instant, yet something that can also be never-changing. Stone beaten by the sea for years on end, yet it refuses to erode.
Love is something Hinata shouyou thought about. He thought about how he loved his mother, and Natsu. He loved the clean spring air and the lights in the marketplace. He loved paint on his fingers and mixing shades of blue. He loved texting Kenma and Suga and Yamaguchi, and of course he loved them too.
However, Hinata had never quite ventured into the other territory of love. The kind that squeezes your heart out of your chest, the kind that swirls in your stomach and threatens to never let go. A different love from family and friends.
No, he had never experienced that. Not quite yet. Though, without his knowledge, he was about to. But not straight away. In fact, at that moment, he was not experiencing love, but was rather experiencing his canvas as he banged his head into it.
“Shouyou? You’re getting paint on your forehead,” Natsu pointed out helpfully, her voice a playful yellow orange. Hinata just sighed.
“Yeah Natsu, I am. I just can’t get this to look right!” He exclaimed, jumping back from the canvas. There was now a large blotch in the middle of the painting due to the forehead interference, and Hinata’s forehead was a lovely shade of rich navy blue.
Hinata stood in front of his painting. Around him, canvases and sketchbook pages were scattered. Paint stains littered the artist’s floor, with stacks of unfinished ideas gathering dust in all the corners. Amidst the chaos, a small path from the center of the room where the easel sat to the door was created. Behind Hinata, there was a shelf full of brushes and paints and pencils of all shapes, sizes and colors. It was woefully unorganized. A sink sat in the corner of the room, a rainbow of washed out stains. A window was open to let the cool night air in.
Hinata looked at his painting again. He groaned at the sight.
The painting was attempting to be… something. The base was the blue, with colors strewn about haphazardly. It was extremely abstract, but obviously not purposeful. The colors were mixing and forming a sad sort of brown in many places, others getting lost in darker colors. All in all, a bit of a mess. Hinata groaned again, and was highly considering smashing his head back into it when Natsu spoke up again from her spot on the floor next to him.
“Why have you been throwing away so many drawings, Sho? You’ve been painting really fast lately, and not finishing any of them,” she said, looking up at him with big doe eyes
“I need one more piece for my portfolio, it’s in like three days! Three days Natsu! And it needs to be really good!” Hinata was pacing around the room at that point. He began to jump up and down in place. “I need something that’s more ‘gwah!’ ya know? Something with some more ‘pow!’” Hinata punctuated his sentence with a kick and a punch. Natsu tilted her head.
“What about the music paintings?” Natsu asked.
“I haven’t found a good song for one so far. Hm…” A bright smile snuck it’s way onto Hinata’s face. “Natsu, why don’t you grab your flute and play me something?”
Natsu jumped for joy at the idea and ran out of the room. Hinata smiled fondly after her. Natsu was only eleven years old, and had barely started playing the flute. She had come rushing home one day, talking about how some of the high school band kids had visited the elementary school and showed off their instruments. Immediately Natsu was begging their mother for a flute. She wasn’t very good, but Hinata knew it made her ecstatic when she got to play for any reason.
“I got it!” Natsu yelled, running into the room brandishing the flute like a sword. It was a polished silver, gleaming in the light. Quickly she thrust the flute up to her mouth and blew into it.
Nothing happened. She tried again. Still no sound. Her eyebrows furrowed.
“Hey Natsu, isn’t a flute supposed to make a sound?” Hinata teased.
“Oh you be quiet! It’s hard to get your mouth on the right place on the top!” Natsu whined. She tried again. This time, a sound came out.
“There, you see!” Natsu said proudly. She squinted her eyes, looking down the flute. Slowly, she placed her fingers on certain keys, thinking very hard about it. Eventually, it seemed as if all her fingers were in the right places.
“Okay, watch this!” She exclaimed. Carefully, she put the flute to her mouth, being sure not to move any of her delicately placed fingers. Again, she took a deep breath in and blew into the flute. A note rang out through the room.
Hinata saw green. Light, luscious green. The kind meant for rolling hills and days full of sunshine. The kind new enough to still smell fresh, the kind soft enough to never make your legs and arms itch when you lay down in it for an afternoon snooze. The green was gentle and faded as the note did. Hinata looked over to Natsu, who was breathing hard.
“Did you, did you hear? I held that one for, for so long,” she panted. “Was it pretty?”
Hinata smiled, taking down the messy blue disaster of a canvas and replacing it with a fresh one from nearby.
“It was a great color Natsu, a really pretty green! Like the hill where we go on picnics with mom, but like, on the best sunny days! Do you know any other notes?” he asked, picking up his paints. Natsu nodded, and went through the process of placing her fingers carefully on the notes again. Once satisfied, she blew another note.
This one was a perfect compliment to the green. A slightly dark blue, the shade of sky that comes right when the bottom edge of the sun first kisses the ground. He could just imagine sitting on the picnic hill, the lights of the city blurry in the distance, the sun just starting to set as the first few shy fireflies emerged from the grass. Him and Natsu and his mom. Sometimes Suga would come along too, and he thinks he could convince Kenma if he had enough time. The ones he loved most, sitting together, watching the world-
“Yes! That’s it!” Hinata yelped, jumping up and down. “Natsu, you’re a musical genius!” Natsu flushed red at the praise. Hinata turned around and began rapidly grabbing at random paints and brushes, squirting different colors all over his palette. Different shades of blue, green, and yellow, whites and blacks, a few oranges and pinks. Without any planning, any thinking, Hinata began to throw colors up on the canvas.
This was pretty typical of Hinata. He wasn’t a very technical painter. Art was emotion, it was whatever he was thinking or feeling at the time. He wasn’t concerned with anatomy or good shading, it was just about how the painting made him feel. He went with his instinct first, and that tended to lead him down the right path.
Hinata spread greens and blues across the canvas, following his gut on where the edges of the hills were, where the sky started. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of something like this before. He had paintings of the gym, where he loved to play volleyball with some of his friends. He had abstract paintings of what his favorite songs looked like to him. He had still life because of course he had to have still life. Paintings of water drops and bicycles. How could he have forgotten to paint this, to show all those schools the most important thing?
A hilltop started to take shape, with a large tree towering over it. A city began to be laid out below, faint and smudged. It was dotted with careful lights. Hinata wiped his forehead, a smear of paint following it. He was too ensnared with his own process to notice.
A sun started to appear in the sky. It wasn’t completely there, starting to hide itself behind a distant hill that laid next to the city on the painting, but far closer due to perspective. In the darker corners of the frame, a choice few stars began to show their faces, fragile white dots placed just so.
The fireflies began to emerge, some still hidden by licks of tall grass. They seemed to glow on the canvas. Just a touch of pink and orange began to creep around the edges of the sun and distant hillside, like they were trying to hang on to it.
Figures started to appear on the main hill, the one with the tree. Six in all. A smaller brush came and delicately brushed silver hair on one, and two-toned hair on another. Three orange haired figures were given color and shape. Another’s hair was brown, but with just a hint of green, like an old tree hidden deep in a forest.
The six figures all sat together, laughing. They were close to each other. A head leaned on a shoulder. Knees bumped. They all had their backs to any onlookers, choosing instead to watch the sunset. Their faces weren’t seen, but it can only be assumed they were smiling.
In the tree, Hinata finally added a crow. It was hidden away in the branches, almost impossible to see if you didn’t know what you were looking for. But it was there. A little touch, Hinata’s way of signing something before he even signed it.
Stepping back, Hinata came back to reality. Sun was shining through the open window and Natsu was long gone, probably had been for some hours now. Hinata suddenly felt the ache in his arm from being used for so long, the need for his legs to not be holding him up. The sleeplessness hit him. He almost fell over. He didn’t though. His eyes never left the painting.
“How could I have forgotten my family?” Hinata murmured to himself.
There on the canvas were the ones he was closest too, all watching the sunset together. His mother holding Natsu close, Suga teasing Yamaguchi and Kenma looking up from his game for just a moment to see the world. Hinata sat with them all. The painting had a feeling to it. It felt like comfort, like family, like relaxed friendships that never truly ended.
It felt like a kind of love.
Hinata tilted his head at the painting for just a moment. It wasn’t a technically perfect piece, that’s for sure. Hinata had never taken any actual art classes or anything, simply drawing what felt right. Though he was nervous that might hurt his chances of getting into schools, wasn’t the school supposed to teach him the technical know-how? He hoped his natural instincts and the emotion he poured into each piece was enough.
And this piece, well, they better like it. It was an emotionally perfect piece, if Hinata did say so himself. He looked at the painting again. Strangely, it felt… incomplete. He didn’t know why, his whole family was there, maybe something else was missing?
No, no, it was probably just the sleep deprivation. Hinata just shook his head. He could look again in a few hours. Maybe he forgot something in the city, or a color in the sunset.
However, as he slunk out of his studio and towards his bedroom, he couldn’t help but think it could be a person.
----------------------------------------------------
Hinata had been anxiously waiting by the mailbox the second he had sent his portfolio off to schools. His mother kept trying to tell him that he wouldn’t find out for a few weeks, but Hinata still insisted on checking the mail every single morning.
The school he was most anxious about was Miyagi University of the Arts. It was an art and music school that Suga went to, and was right near Kenma’s school, Tokyo Tech. The schools often collaborated on arts and science or technology projects. Kenma had told him about how some art students had helped with a game design project he was working on.
The art piece that had convinced him to start painting had also come out of Miyagi U. He remembers seeing it for the first time like it was only yesterday, despite the years that had passed.
He doesn’t remember the artist’s name. Only the picture, a short man with dark black hair and an intense expression. The painting itself was a wonder. A figure reaching towards the sun, with outstretched wings extending from his back. The wings were shiny and black, some feathers dropping off of them as the man flew higher and higher. He was straining, reaching, fighting for something. The rest of the world didn’t matter. It didn’t matter how high up he was, if his wings were tired. He was reaching the sun.
At least, that’s what Hinata thought. Though it was a painting, he felt like it was moving, like the outstretched wings were flapping in front of his eyes. The canvas itself was huge, stretching so far up Hinata had trouble seeing the top. Though Hinata didn’t remember the artist's name, he remembered the name of the piece.
Fly.
Hinata had always been able to see things others didn’t. Synesthesia would do that to you. But before seeing that painting, he had never thought about expressing himself through art. Yet, looking at those wings, Hinata could almost hear it. The blue of the sky reminded him of his mother’s voice. The feeling of reaching, or desperation for something, of a drive to get somewhere, Hinata knew it. He saw it on the canvas.
He wanted to put himself on a canvas too.
That’s where it all began. Hinata was often inspired by songs or voices or other sounds he heard for colors and shapes in his painting. He loved when something came out right, when you could practically feel the emotion dripping off it. Painting was how he was able to explain his synesthesia to Natsu, how he was able to overcome his frustrations when he felt too short or not smart enough. He expressed his joys and fears into his art, and he wanted to be better at it, to do it for the rest of his life.
Miyagi is where he had to be for that to happen. He wanted to create his own Fly.
So he was going to check the mailbox religiously until he got that letter.
“Shouyou, come inside! Your dinner is getting cold and the mailman won’t come again until tomorrow so stop checking!” Hinata jumped at his mother’s words. He pouted, but obeyed, walking back inside. Before he went through the door, he looked back at the mailbox one last time, as if it would suddenly have new mail.
“SHOUYOU! STOP LETTING COLD AIR INTO THE HOUSE!” His mother called, voice a bright red-orange.
“SORRY!” He yelled back, and quickly made his way inside.
----------------------------------------------------
“When are we gonna hear baaaaaack,” Hinata complained to Yamaguchi. The two were out at a park eating lunch together. Yamaguchi said it was to distract them from their school acceptances and rejections, but there was one school the pair was particularly nervous about.
“I think it should be soon,” Yamaguchi responded. Hinata always liked how his voice looked. A hesitant spring green.
“How soon is soon? Like, soon as in right now or like next week soon?” Hinata asked, leaning towards Yamaguchi.
“I don’t know, a few days soon? That soon? Soon, how many days is soon? My mom said soon-ish, what does the ish mean? More or less soon?” Yamaguchi tended to ramble when he got nervous. Hinata recognized it instantly.
“Oy, Yamaguchi! Don’t be nervous! You’re totally gonna get in! I saw that last water color you did, that alone is gonna blow those stuffy professors away!” Yamaguchi laughed nervously at Hinata’s words.
“Well if I shouldn’t be nervous, then you shouldn’t be either. I mean, that last painting was just amazing! You could have like, sold it or something,” he said. Hinata waved his arms.
“No way! I did that in like, one night, it’s way too sloppy! Plus no one would even know who the people are in it! That’d be so random to buy it,” Hinata mused.
“One night! Gosh that’s unfair. It took me forever to even sketch that apple tree picture,” Yamaguchi complained.
“Yeah, and it’s awesome! You put the time in, and you got something really good out. Trust me Yamaguchi, you’re totally in,” Hinata said.
“I guess you’re right. Hey, do you know what dorm you want to be in?” Yamaguchi asked, changing the subject.
“Karasuno! Sugawara’s gonna be an RA for that dorm!” Hinata said.
“Oh yeah, I remember him saying something about that. He said they only have a few spots, since all the dorms have students from every year,” Yamaguchi said.
“Yeah, it’s cool that you can be roommates with a second or third year already!” Hinata exclaimed. Yamaguchi rubbed the back of his neck.
“Well, I read that it’s pretty rare for that to happen, usually first years are all paired together unless there’s some special circumstances, like a gender divide or someone needing their own room.”
“I still think it would be cool!”
Yamaguchi laughed at that. The subject stayed on dorms and school for a little bit, before it changed to art and then friends and then that one new noodle place that opened down the street and then somehow the topic landed on the best type of dog, despite neither boy owning one. A few hours later, Yamaguchi checked the time and yelped.
“It’s that late already? I told my mom I’d be back in ten minutes!” Yamaguchi quickly stood up. “I’ll text you later Hinata!” He called. Then he began to fast-walk down the path, trying to cut down his fifteen minute walk back home.
“Bye Yamaguchi! I’ll talk to you later!” Hinata called back. He then turned the other way and started the much shorter five minute walk back to his house.
----------------------------------------------------
When Hinata arrived back, he checked the mailbox. Nothing. But the mail hadn’t been delivered yet when he left to go hang out with Yamaguchi. His mom must have brought it in.
Hinata waltzed inside, calling out “I’M HOME” to the entryway.
“Shouyou! A letter came for you!” His mother responded.
Hinata swore he felt his brain short-circuiting.
He threw off his shoes as fast as possible and sprinted to the kitchen, almost slipping on the way there. He skidded down the hall risky business style and ended up in front of a pile of papers on the kitchen table.
“Over here Sho,” his mother said from behind a kitchen counter. She was holding up an envelope. A larger-than-normal envelope. Like one a university might send. Hinata rushed forward and plucked it from his mother’s hand.
“Thanks mom!” he said, already ripping open the top of the envelope. He reached inside and pulled out a piece of paper that was far nicer than most papers had a right to be, with a seal on the folded part facing out. Hinata quickly broke the seal, but did his best not to rip the paper.
He eagerly unfolded the envelope.
A few seconds passed, Hinata’s eyes scanning the page, careful not to miss a word.
His mom stared at him, nervous for her son.
Suddenly, Hinata yelled.
“I GOT IN!” He cried out.
“Shouyou that’s fantastic!” His mother said, doing a little jump of her own.
“I can’t believe it! Miyagi! I get to paint there! Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh!” Hinata could barely contain his energy on the best of days, but now he was practically jumping on the couch and sprinting around the room, yelling.
“Wait!” Hinata came to an abrupt halt. “I have to text Yamaguchi!” He raced out of the room, the letter falling out of his hands. His mother smiled and shook her head, walking over to the letter and picking it up.
Dear Hinata Shouyou, the letter began.
We would like to congratulate you on making it into Miyagi University of the Arts! The best years of your life await you, and we hope you choose Miyagi to celebrate them. You’ve been accepted into the Fine Arts major, and Karasuno dorms.
The letter continued on, detailing more congratulations and acceptance options. Hinata’s mother smiled. Her baby was going to his dream school! She carefully placed the letter down on the kitchen table, smiling at it as she went back to the stove to prepare dinner. She may even make a dessert, just as a little present to Shouyou. He had worked so hard on his portfolio. She couldn’t be prouder.
----------------------------------------------------
Far away, but not quite too far away, a very similar letter found its way into another pair of hands. Long fingers, slightly calloused, and very well manicured. They crushed the paper under their grip.
Dear Kageyama Tobio,
We would like to congratulate you on making it into Miyagi University of the Arts! The best years of your life await you, and we hope you choose Miyagi to celebrate them. You’ve been accepted into the Music major, and Karasuno dorms.
Kageyama sighed, not bothering to read the rest quite yet. All the other music schools must have seen that concert disaster. He had gotten plenty of rejections, and Miyagi certainly wasn’t his first choice. He looked at the letter again.
His grandfather had always said that the universe would always put itself in tune. That it didn’t make mistakes, and even if the first few notes were a little rough, they always righted themselves in the end. He had laughed as Kageyama struggled to fit his small fingers on the strings on the violin, or reach both sides of the piano.
“Follow the music, Tobio,” he said. Kageyama re-read the letter. Miyagi University. Well, it wasn’t like it was a bad school. It was actually ranked pretty high, prided itself on creativity and collaboration. Kageyama wasn’t very good at those two things, but maybe that’s why this letter was sitting in his lap.
Love itself wasn’t something Kageyama had experienced for a long time. Not the comfort that came with familial love, nor the platonic warmth of friendship. And he had never, not once, felt the stone-beaten, heart-eating, mountain-climbing, river-rapid-moving type of love. Not yet.
Follow the music. Closing his eyes, Kageyama could almost hear it, softly, softly. The universe tuning itself. It was getting ready for a very important performance.