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Hinata Shouyou is well into his first year in middle school when he finally receives his Sign. Remarkably enough, this important event passes unnoticed. The small characters on the inside of his arm remain unseen for a while, lost underneath playground dirt and dinosaur band-aids, taken for itchy spider bite scabs and otherwise blurred out by the constant movements of a boy who is unable to sit still. It’s not until his sister is born, with unintelligible traces of a Sign already visible, that it occurs to the family that maybe their oldest child has received his as well.
“I’m glad they didn’t turn out to be Signless.” Their mother smiles and slips her hand over her husband’s arm, where her name is written in beautiful, delicate characters. “I was getting more and more worried about that being a possibility, especially with Shouyou.”
They watch, amused, as their young son picks his sister up and spins them both around, much to the shrieking joy of the little girl. It’s a relief that their children are healthy, happy and blessed with a Soulmate. After all, Signs are ideal and absolute. The society revolves around their perfect image, so much that it is generally in favor of Soulmates that are able to marry each other.
“He’ll be fine,” their father replies. “We already know the Yachi family a little and Hitoka-chan is a sweet girl. She’s very similar to Shouyou, they get along well.” He gently pats the back of his wife’s hand. “I’m sure they’re going to be happy.”
**
At the beginning of high school, something that looks suspiciously like another Sign starts forming on Hinata Shouyou’s skin. At first it’s nothing but an itch right above his ankle, a swollen red patch that’s weakly throbbing and warm to the touch. He brushes it off as a light sprain, he is a bit reckless and prone to accidents, but it doesn’t take long before a distinct pattern emerges. It soon turns into the dark outline of a set of wings, unfolded and small and plain, like an abandoned tattoo.
Hinata doesn’t know what it means. It can’t be a Sign, mainly because receiving a Sign is a one-time occurrence and they always appear in the shape of someone’s name. He’s already got his anyway; it says ‘Yachi Hitoka’ on the inside of his arm, as clear as day. At the same time the wings won’t go away, no matter how much he rubs at them. The symbol fits the world he lives in, and yet it doesn’t. It’s much too strange and contradictory for that.
He tells Yachi about it, who suggests he should tell his parents, and he would have done just that if only he didn’t have so many other things on his mind. More importantly the fact that his childhood dream of playing high school volleyball hasn’t quite turned out the way he pictured.
Kageyama Tobio is tall and athletic, in possession of amazing power and ball control, and his game intuition is unmatched. He is so skilled it’s beyond intimidating. He is also frightening, unpleasant, and unapproachable, and although he is generally polite and well mannered, he doesn’t know how to communicate anything to Hinata without an insult somehow attached to it. He’s much like a child, spoiled rotten on his own perfected talent that he has decided to share only with those he deems worthy. He’s an arrogant, self-centered player and Hinata can’t stand him.
Kageyama shoots him a sour look from across the gym, his eyebrows pulled into a disapproving frown and his fingers picking at a small band-aid on his left wrist. Joining the volleyball club has become a disaster already, and Hinata feels useless and clumsy. If he didn’t love this sport so much and had such a strong desire to become good at it, he would have been out of there several weeks ago.
“What are you going to do about it?” Yachi asks, as she and Hinata make their way home.
Hinata pouts, feeling his mood drop as soon as the subject of Kageyama comes up. “Get along with the guy, I guess,” he mutters gloomily. “I wanna stay in the club just as much as he does. But I’m never gonna be friends with him.”
They walk in silence for a while, Hinata kicking small rocks out of their path while trying not to trip on the pedals of his bike.
“I’ve… been asked to become the new manager for the volleyball club, eventually,” Yachi says, after a moment’s hesitation. “I don’t know much about that kind of job and Mom says I shouldn’t put in a half-assed effort, but… I want to do it, though.”
“Then do it,” Hinata smiles. “I think that’d be nice. You’ll make a great manager.”
**
They’re nearly one and a half semester done with their first year in high school and friendship has turned out to be a funny, unpredictable thing. Hinata never thought it possible, but Kageyama actually isn’t so terrible after all. Sure, his face is scary, his temper is short, and he has a death grip that only seems to become more painful each time it clamps down on Hinata’s head. But they’ve played a few matches together and it’s obvious that they bring out the best in each other. They’re able to stay on the court thanks to each other, and their somewhat forced collaboration has changed them as volleyball players. It’s fun playing volleyball with Kageyama, which is something Hinata wouldn’t have believed half a year ago. Now it feels like the most natural thing in the world, to have someone send him tosses that help him fly.
“Hey, Kageyama,” he says between mouthfuls of meat bun, “who’s your Sign? Do you know?”
Kageyama hesitates at his question, and for a moment there’s just the sound of Hinata’s old bike and a flock of crows circling overhead. In the end he responds with a grunt and digs his hands deeper into his pockets. “Why do you wanna know?”
Hinata shrugs, smacking his lips. “No reason. Just curious.”
“Well, go be curious somewhere else.”
“Why?” He smirks up at Kageyama’s turned away face, eyening the red tips of his ears. “Is it something embarrassing? Is it a foreign name you can’t pronounce?” He lowers his voice into a whisper. “Is she too pretty for you?”
“Shut up, you idiot.”
The crows above them drift further away, sailing on the weak currents of the wind, until they turn into tiny moving dots above the setting sun. It all happens at a glacial pace, like late afternoon hours usually do.
“Hitoka-chan is my Sign,” Hinata says after a while. He rubs the back of his head and smiles sheepishly. “I mean, it’s really cool because I know her well, but at the same time it feels a little weird.”
Kageyama is quiet again before he glances down at him. “Hitoka-chan?”
“Yep! Yachi-san! Soon to be manager of the volleyball club?”
“Oh… Really?”
Hinata pulls up his sleeve and puts his arm out to show him. The small characters forming his Soulmate’s name are gleaming ever so slightly in the weakening light. Kageyama stares at his arm for a little while, visibly fascinated. The crows have dissipated by now, more or less gone against the softness of the red sky.
“That’s nice. She’s cute,” he says, which is a standard reply. “Does it feel like she is?” he then asks. “Your Soulmate, I mean?”
Hinata tilts his head, giving it a thought. What an odd question. “Well, yeah? But we’ve been friends for ages, so…” He shrugs and smiles. “I guess that helps.”
“I see…”
Kageyama looks away. There’s an expression on his face that Hinata can’t quite read, and it leaves him a bit curious. The wings on his ankle are itching again, like his skin is prickling, crawling. He wonders if he should mention them, maybe ask if the other boy has any ideas as to what they could be, but just as he opens his mouth Kageyama picks up the pace. He mutters something about promising to make it home for dinner and the subject of Signs is promptly dropped.
**
The itch becomes worse as the week passes, which is a little distracting. Hinata begins to wonder if the symbol could actually be sentient, that it’s trying to tell him something. Maybe the itch has to become worse for it to disappear, just like with insect bites and illness. Maybe it is an illness, the thing on his ankle. Maybe it’s a malfunction in the System of Signs. Maybe it’s alien. Now that would be something. Something for the movies.
Hinata picks at his dinner with his chopsticks, dividing sticky rice into bite size pieces but not feeling hungry enough to eat them. Instead he lines them up, each with a piece of green vegetable and a piece of red meat on the side, several miniature meals with all vitamins and proteins included. His plate has become a dollhouse cafeteria and his ankle itches something awfully.
“Mom?” He drags the top of his other foot over his anklebone, without getting any noticeable satisfaction from it. “Can you have a Sign that isn’t a name?”
His mother stops doing the dishes for a moment, her busy hands pausing, soap and water dripping heavily into the sink. She turns around, looking genuinely confused. “What do you mean, Shouyou?”
Hinata squirms a little in his seat, still picking at his food and feeling uncomfortable for reasons he can’t name, reasons possibly stretching beyond this constant itch.
“I mean, does the Sign always have to be a name? Can’t it be, like… I don’t know… a symbol or something?”
The look of confusion on his mother’s face turns into curiosity. She wipes her hands on her apron and frowns. “Why do you ask?”
“Oh, it was just someone in my class.” Hinata busies himself with his food again. “They were saying they had a symbol instead of a name. I don’t know if that’s true though,” he adds quickly. “It’s not like I’ve seen it or anything.”
“Well…” She hums thoughtfully. “If that is the case it would be very rare. I’ve never heard of anyone receiving a Sign that wasn’t a name… You either get one or you don’t, that’s the norm. But then again, you never know.”
“What… happens to those who don’t get Soulmates?”
His mother smiles and returns to the dishes. “They find Soulmates of their own and live their lives just like everyone else does. They might not have the same advantages as the majority, that’s true, but all there is to it is a bit of hard work, really. There are plenty of success stories, even among the Signless.”
Hinata picks thoughtfully at his food, demolishing his small towers of rice, meat and vegetables. “Can someone have two Signs?” he asks, chin in hand.
“Two Signs?”
“Yeah. Maybe, like… for two different people?”
“That sounds redundant… But no one can know that for certain either, can they? Everything’s possible.”
“The Soulmate deal seems pretty settled if you ask me,” Hinata mutters and stabs a chopstick through a piece of meat. He’s sulking all of a sudden and he knows it, but he has no idea why. He’s just annoyed.
Another soft smile appears on his mother’s face. “So do you think that you can only love Hitoka-chan, just because you two are Soulmates?”
Hinata frowns, head tilted. “No…? I mean, I love you and Dad, and Natsu, too. And I love my friends, I guess.”
“See what I mean?” His mother looks over her shoulder and winks at him. “Signs may be permanent, but being with your Soulmate isn’t always perfect. Forming other close relationships is just as important, because your heart is big and you are fully capable of loving more than one person. It doesn’t make you any less of a Soulmate.”
**
By the time they start college, the itch on Hinata’s ankle has faded a little. It still remains a constant, a patch that is slightly warmer than the rest of his skin, a spot that always prickles uncomfortably whenever he daydreams in class or can’t sleep at night. But he gets used to his unique pair of warm, restless wings. Besides, there are other things to worry about, like the chance to finally play elite volleyball on a regular basis.
College feels more like a temporary stop, an academic detour that happens to have good volleyball options, and Kageyama seems to be of that opinion as well. In three years he has grown a little taller, a little broader across the shoulders. His jump serve is now accurate almost to the point of perfection, and although his academic merits aren’t exactly outstanding, his good looks makes up for it. He usually has plenty of people chasing after him but Kageyama has never expressed the slightest interest in any of them. Sometimes Hinata wonders if he’s even capable of feeling that kind of drive at all. Unless it’s about volleyball, Kageyama seems to be in no particular rush. That comes as no surprise though, volleyball-brained as he is.
Hinata would never admit it to his face, but they’re a very lucky person, whoever Kageyama’s Soulmate is. Kageyama may have an awkward personality and a naturally intimidating aura, but he is a good person despite that. Hinata wonders if Kageyama is aware. He chews on the end of his pen and watches Kageyama pick halfheartedly on the band-aid on his wrist, both of them bored in class.
That damn band-aid, he thinks absently. Does he ever take it off?
In fact, that band-aid has been ever-present for as long as he’s known him. Hinata has never seen him actually change it, but it’s always new and clean. The more he thinks about it, the more he becomes aware of it. The more he becomes aware of it, the more he’s certain that the band-aid must be there for a reason. Hinata’s brain decides that it must obviously be hiding Kageyama’s Sign, it’s not very unusual for people to be private about them, but the class ends before he can whisper a question in his direction.
They slip into the busy corridor and walk outside to make their way to a different auditorium, crossing the yard in silence. Their last class for the day starts in ten minutes and they have practice after that. It’s been a long day and the sky is starting to bleed already, reds and oranges spilling onto the buildings around them, drawing out long, distorted shadows. In a couple of hours’ time it’s going to be dark. Hinata feels a bit fidgety and Kageyama is a brick wall of absent thoughts next to him. He keeps playing with the band-aid on his wrist, his eyebrows furrowed and his bottom lip tucked underneath his teeth.
Hinata stares, hesitates, thinks – and then he stops thinking altogether. He swiftly reaches out, gets a hold of a loose end of the band-aid, and pulls. The patch comes off cleanly, with a weak tearing sound, and Kageyama chokes on an insult and a curse before he quickly clamps his hand over his wrist. Students hurriedly move past them and their class is about to start in less than three minutes, but they’ve come to a sudden stop right there and it’s all so strange. Because Hinata has already seen what Kageyama is trying to hide. He’s not hiding anything at all. There’s nothing on his wrist – no wounds, no scabs, no words. The band-aid seems to conceal nothing and Hinata is too confused to think of reasons why. He has no follow-up to this and he’s starting to regret his actions. He had expected a Sign; that was going to be his follow-up. Stupid Kageyama.
“What are you doing, you moron?!”
Kageyama is the first one to find back to his voice. He stares at him, eyes livid and cheeks bright pink. Hinata just stares back, standing there with the band-aid stuck to his fingers.
“I – I’m sorry, I –” He wants to explain but he doesn’t really know what to say. He doesn’t even know what he’s about to apologize for either, so he cuts himself off and releases a stream of questions instead. “What have you been wearing this thing for? Is this one of those painkiller patches or something? Have you had painful wrists that makes it hard for you to toss?”
Kageyama ignores him and all but snarls as he snatches the band-aid back. “You’re so stupid, I can’t believe you.”
“I thought maybe you were concealing your Sign or someth–”
“Why are you so obsessed with my Sign? Huh?” He’s practically spitting the words out and Hinata flinches a little. “It’s none of your business, so stop!”
Kageyama clicks his tongue irritably and tries to stick the band-aid back onto his skin, which seems like a pointless act now that most of the glue has worn off. His hands are trembling slightly and for a moment he looks more upset than anything, almost betrayed. Hinata doesn’t really get it, but he understands that this might possibly be one of the most thoughtless things he’s ever done. Regret immediately hits him, right in the pit of his stomach, the part of him that always holds a surge of butterflies whenever he manages to hit a toss. This time it just drops, as though the bottom has fallen out and left him stuck with the sensation of falling.
“I… just wanted to know?” he says tentatively. “I mean, we’re friends, right? Friends share these kinds of things so I don’t see why you’re so upset, I was honestly just wondering –”
“I don’t have a Sign!” Kageyama snaps angrily, and Hinata’s planned apology dies before he can find the right words. “I’m Signless, okay? There you have it, mystery solved. You happy?”
The glare he shoots him is uncharacteristically short-lived, quickly tainted by embarrassment and humiliation and Hinata just wants the ground to open up and swallow him because he has never felt so awful in his entire life. He stares at the taller boy, whose eyes are hidden by the hair falling into his face.
“Oh,” he says stupidly. “I’m… sorry. I’m sorry, Kageyama, I didn’t know –”
“Yeah, well, why should you know?” Kageyama cuts him off, talking to his hand, still trying to make the band-aid stick to his skin. “It’s not exactly something to brag about, is it?”
“So… So did you…” Hinata pauses, catching a small breath. “Did you wear that just for pretend, or…?”
“What do you think, dumbass.”
“But, um… why? Why would you pretend to have one?”
Kageyama lets out a snort of a laugh but it just comes out sounding bitter and halfhearted. “Are you kidding me? This world is built around Signs. It’s easier to keep people curious than tell them the truth.”
“That’s stupid,” Hinata blurts out, before he can stop himself. The Kageyama standing in front of him doesn’t speak like the Kageyama he knows and it’s both scary and annoying. “It’s not like Signless people are excluded or anything, you just don’t get the perks. Well, okay, so maybe that is exclusion after all, but I mean, the system is old and messed up! It could really do with a change, or even complete removal, but that’s just how things are right now and we have to accept that! Besides, there are plenty of non-Soulmate couples. Not having a Sign doesn’t mean you can’t–”
“You wouldn’t understand,” Kageyama interrupts, his teeth gritted. “I have accepted it and I don’t need a fucking Soulmate. I’m not interested.”
“But –”
“I’m done talking about this,” he says, and his angry expression doesn’t match the tone in his voice, which is dry and choked up. “See you tomorrow.”
Hinata lets his arms drop and it takes every ounce of self-control not to chase Kageyama’s slowly retreating shape. “What about practice?” he shouts after him, but the reply remains absent.
**
Kageyama doesn’t show up to class the next day and Hinata has gone from beating himself up to raging over how much of an idiot that guy is. He’s so obviously avoiding him and Hinata wishes he was there just so he could serve a volleyball smack into the back of his head. He’s pretty sure that would solve more than being absent and refusing to reply to his messages.
Yachi comes over for dinner that evening and Hinata meets her at the bus stop. He can’t help but complain to her even though he knows he shouldn’t. They’re in different colleges and they don’t see each other that often anymore, he shouldn’t burden her with this, but he’s still seething by the time they’re back and he just can’t stop ranting. Natsu appears in the doorway moments later, looking as annoyed as only a teenager is capable of looking.
“Onii-chan, shut up!” She glares at him, before she turns to Yachi, smiling happily. “Hi, Hitoka-chan!” she says, before slipping back into the living room.
Hinata murmurs an apology that goes unheard, struggling with the laces on his shoes though the knot only seems to grow tighter and tighter the more he tries to undo it. In the end he spits out a curse and flops heavily down on the floor.
“You know,” Yachi says, sighing softly. “You two really need to get along properly if you both want regular spots on the national team. Sometimes you guys act like you never even left high school. Sort it out, whatever it is."
Hinata drags his hands across his face and groans. “I know, but it’s not that easy! He’s just –” He hesitates, unsure of whether or not he should tell her, but he catches a glimpse of his own name written on her arm and remembers there are certain things he shouldn’t doubt. “Kageyama is Signless,” he sighs. “I found out yesterday. He’s only been pretending to have one.”
Yachi needs a second for the message to sink in, but when it does her brown eyes grow wide with surprise. “Kageyama-kun is Signless? But… I never would have guessed that! Oh no, the poor, poor–” She abruptly cuts herself off, her pained expression turning into a suspicious glare. “Shouyou, did you shun him? Did you? Because to your information, he can’t help that he’s Signless, he’s just –”
“I know, alright! And I didn’t shun him! It’s not about that, I just – I can’t believe he never told me.”
She laughs, shaking her head. “Okay, so Signs have been important for a while now but it’s not like he was ever obligated to tell you.”
“Yeah...” Hinata mutters, finally managing to pry his shoe off without bothering with the laces. He remains on the floor, subconsciously rubbing his ankle. It’s itching again, the skin hot and throbbing against his palm. “We’re friends, is all I’m saying. Friends tell each other things. They don’t keep them hidden.”
“Just the way you are keeping things hidden…?”
“That’s –!” He splutters, feeling stupidly defensive all of a sudden. “This thing is totally random! It doesn’t have anything to do with Kageyama being Signless.”
“Honestly,” Yachi begins in that knowing voice Hinata has come to hate a little, because whatever she’s going to say next will make perfect sense. “We plan our entire lives around tiny markings on our skin. You don’t truly believe that those wings just popped up completely at random?”
When Hinata doesn’t answer she pats her skirt down and sits next to him, regarding him for a quiet moment before she speaks. “Lately, I’ve been thinking… The Soulmate system can be quite rigid sometimes. For something that’s supposed to be safe and happy, it’s very strict. And to be honest… I really doubt that all Soulmates end up marrying each other.”
Hinata looks up, his heart beating fast and hard, both hands clamped protectively over the warm symbol on his ankle.
“I know that not everyone does,” Yachi continues quietly. “And it’s not only because of natural causes, like death, but I don’t think everyone gets to that point, or even love each other that way. I’m sure that there are others out there who have secondary Signs, just like you do, and I’m also certain that the number of Signless people is greater than it seems. We’ve been taught to think about it this way thanks to society, but… being Soulmates isn’t always about falling in love. In my opinion, there’s much more to it than that. Soulmates who are nothing but best friends are just as important. They don’t need to be wed to validate anything. And I hope society understands that someday.”
She tucks a piece of her blond hair behind her ear, only to let it fall back into her face. Hinata doesn’t know what to say so he just stares at her. He knew he felt this way, he had known all along, but he had no idea how much sense it made until Yachi put it into words. An array of emotions is chasing through him but most of all he is relieved.
“Those wings on your ankle are there for a reason,” she says, smiling. “I’m pretty sure it’s no coincidence that they’re wings.”
Hinata’s heart skips a beat at that. Truth be told, he’s always regarded the wings like a bit of a mystery, always been a little cautious and wary of them. At the same time they’ve never really given him any worthwhile answers. Naturally, he deemed it safe to ignore them. Now, with Yachi’s words echoing through his head, he realizes that the symbol has only been around for as long as he’s known Kageyama, and so has the itching and throbbing. Maybe the whole thing is more of a puzzle than a mystery; a puzzle where it makes sense to have these feelings and where itching wings are perfectly normal. After all, no one helps him fly the way Kageyama does.
“You really like Kageyama-kun a lot, don’t you?”
“W-well, I wouldn’t...” Hinata stammers and looks away, blushing. “It’s not like I can have two Soulmates.”
“Maybe it’s not about Soulmates, then.” Yachi laughs a little and gently bumps their shoulders together. “Maybe it’s about something really simple, like being good for each other.”
**
Hinata runs all the way to their next practice. He hasn’t seen Kageyama all day, he’s not been to any of their classes, but surely he can’t be skipping out on volleyball two times in a row. It must be physically painful for someone like him to do that.
Sure enough, he catches Kageyama just as he’s on his way to the gym. He’s trailing after a couple of other players on the team but he doesn’t seem to be interacting much with them. Hinata takes a deep breath and straightens up.
“Hey!” he calls out, and several heads turn at the sound of his voice. Kageyama’s shoulders stiffen, his pace slowing down for a second before he speeds up slightly. “Hey, volleyball brain! I’m talking to you!”
Kageyama eventually comes to a slow stop and turns around. His dark blue eyes are sharp but his expression is tired, like he dreaded this moment just as much as he expected it. Hinata covers the distance between them in a few strides and without thinking he gives him a shove, putting enough force in it to send him stumbling backwards. Kageyama looks about ready to charge back at him immediately, anger quickly rising to his face, but Hinata beats him to it.
“How dare you?”
“What?”
“How dare you!” Hinata repeats, a little louder. “Pretending you had a Sign? How dare you do that? Just so you could feel sorry for yourself? Is that where your bad personality comes from? Because that’s stupid! You’re stupid, Kageyama!”
Hinata feels like his heart is about to burst into pieces, that it’s going to hammer its way right out of his chest any minute. The wings on his ankle are itching so bad they could just as well have been on fire. Kageyama stares at him, for a moment stunned into wordless surprise. Then he balls his hands into fists, his eyes lit up in a sharp glare.
“You have no idea what the hell you’re talking about. I did it because it was the easiest thing to do but I didn’t really care, not about the system and not about other people’s expectations.” He hesitates, swallowing visibly, and a blush creeps onto his cheeks, erasing some of the sharpness in his eyes. “I really did mean it when I said I wasn’t interested. Even though everyone was obsessed with Signs, I was always… I always thought it shouldn’t matter.”
“And you’re right, it shouldn’t,” Hinata says. “Kageyama, it seriously doesn’t matter. Who cares?”
“I didn’t care! I wasn’t even upset about being Signless, not until –” Kageyama stops talking again and catches a steadying breath, his hands dug deep in his pockets. The anger has gradually disappeared from his features, angled the line of his mouth and the crease between his eyes into something lost and sad and windswept.
“Until…?” Hinata prods carefully.
Kageyama hesitates, mentally starting and ending his sentence several times before he speaks. “Not until I met you.” He’s blushing furiously but he takes his hands out of his pockets and locks eyes with him. “I like you, Hinata,” he says, in that declarative and embarrassingly honest way of his. “I wish you had a different Soulmate. I wish it was me.”
Hinata is pretty certain that everything around them just stops in that moment. Nothing moves anymore, it even seems like all sounds have been turned off, and he could have run a mile for all he cares because that’s how breathless he feels. He bends over, his hands placed on his knees. There’s a phantom sting in his side, purely imagined, but the slowly fading itch on his ankle is completely real. Hinata gives an annoyed huff before he straightens up so he can shove at Kageyama again.
“You’re the one who has no idea what the hell he’s talking about. You’re still being stupid!”
“Wh–”
“How dare you confess to all that while looking like you’ve totally given up? You make it sound like you can’t even do anything about it, you asshole!”
“Well, I can’t, can I!” Kageyama snaps. “And that’s not my fault! You received your Sign years ago!”
“It’s not like that with me and Hitoka!” Hinata yells. “We’re Soulmates, yeah, but not like that, we don’t feel that way about each other. But… I feel that way about you.”
He wishes Yachi was there so she could repeat what she told him, because it was perfect and he’s nowhere near eloquent enough to reproduce all that. Kageyama on the other hand looks like someone who has been both slapped and kissed. His expression is so ridiculous Hinata doesn’t know whether he should laugh or cry. He mostly feels like laughing so that’s what he does, much to Kageyama’s confused annoyance.
“Dumbass, what are you –”
“I have wings.”
“What?”
Hinata kneels down and pulls his sock down, revealing the symbol on his ankle. He knows that apart from volleyball, he has never cared this way about anything or anyone before. Kageyama is important, important to him, and he needs him to know that.
“These have only been around for as long as you’ve been around. It’s not how Signs usually work, so at first I thought that maybe it didn’t mean anything, but… no matter how you look at it, these are meaningless without you.”
A few long seconds pass by without any reply. It’s just the distant sound of voices, mixed with squeaking sneakers and volleyballs bouncing off of floors and hands. Hinata remains kneeling and doesn’t dare look up. He’s starting to think that maybe he’s blown it, that this has all of a sudden become too real to handle, until Kageyama crouches next to him. He reaches out and awkwardly puts his hands on Hinata’s shoulders, his hands weighing on him warm and heavy.
“In the long run… we’re going to have to work ten times harder than everyone else,” he says, talking to the ground, his ears glowing red. “So… you should be absolutely one hundred percent sure before you say something like that.”
Hinata doesn’t even realize he’s been holding his breath until he exhales shakily and it feels like his heart starts beating again. He grins. “If we split it between us we’ll each only have to work five times as hard. I’m sure it’ll even out, eventually.”
Kageyama looks up, frowning for a moment, before the joke catches on. “I was being serious, you dumbass,” he mutters, but he can’t help but smile nonetheless.
**
Kageyama watches silently as Hinata clumsily draws a pair of wings on his wrist, on the exact same spot where his band-aid always used to be. The black marker is fuzzy and old, something that just happened to sit abandoned in the bottom of someone’s bag, and the ink leaks shaky rivers into the smooth, tiny wrinkles on Kageyama’s skin.
There’s a quiet roar outside, the familiar rumble of a crowd gathering to watch a match. The sound is muffled inside the locker room where they’re currently sitting. Kageyama always thought it was a bit unnerving, to just faintly hear something in the distance, but not see it. He can only imagine the fast approaching, multiple-headed monster, coming at them with its flags, banners, and painted cheeks.
When they go out there, the monster is going to cheer and the numbers on their backs will reach much further than the stadium, even the country they’re in. In only a few minutes, the color of their jerseys is going reach the entire world. It’s their first internationally broadcasted game. It’s their first Olympic game of volleyball ever.
It leaves a nervous surge in the pit of Kageyama’s stomach, and it’s both exhilarating and terrifying. It feels like takeoff, like flight.
“There!” Kageyama looks up as Hinata recaps the marker and beams at him. “You have a Sign now!”
Kageyama turns his hand a little, letting the light catch in the black lines. It’s a childish drawing and it’s not very good, but he can’t help but stare at it, fascinated.
“It looks awful,” he says evenly, although a small blush relentlessly forms on his cheeks, giving him away.
Hinata punches him in the arm and pulls a face at him. “As if you could have done it better, you jackass. I’ve given you your own pair of wings so show a little gratitude!"
As they head out to stand on the court, a small bird appears on Kageyama’s shoulder. It arrives inconspicuously, nothing but ink-like traces rising up from beneath his skin. No one notices it at first, not even Kageyama himself. By the end of the game it has settled on his shoulder, the silhouette of a tiny bird unable to fly, although its wings are right there next to him. They’re already unfolded in flight as Hinata leaps for the sky.