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Hinata Shoyo can read minds.
Or rather he actually cannot read minds, opting instead to pick up seemingly invisible patterns of body language. For someone so often described as extremely emotionally perceptive, he is apparently not good at perceiving change. Except he actually is, seeing as this is such a vital part of being emotionally perceptive.
He could almost feel the machinations of his brain, moving, trying to produce an explanation to the abnormality in a pattern he was supposed to already have figured out. Because Hinata Shoyo can read minds.
Feet kick back at the metal staircase, waiting.
Seeing as entering someone's brain and being aware of their thoughts in real time is not actually possible, the ability to read minds comes from the perception of one's surroundings, from picking apart small details, slight changes in a pattern.
There are no feet kicking back at the metal staircase, waiting.
Per definition, reading minds means being aware of one's thoughts without them being voiced out loud, meaning that, technicalities aside, everyone is constantly reading their own mind, which is obvious, but not to Hinata, because he can read minds.
There are feet kicking back at the metal staircase, no longer waiting.
*
Laying down on the couch, Hinata forces himself to pick apart the inconsistencies in his own pattern, realizing he has no idea of what his own pattern even is. Because of course he doesn't.
The tv is the only source of background noise in the dark living room. Everyone is asleep except for him, laying on his back and staring at the ceiling as if it has personally offended him. The anchor asks about the weather. Hinata turns his back to the tv.
wouldn't you want to know weather boy , he thinks, as the weather boy in question starts to go on about thunderstorms.
The thing about paying attention to other people's body language is knowing that everything being analysed is completely involuntary, therefore rendering it impossible for someone to notice their own patterns.
He groaned to himself. When had things changed?
*
Kageyama Tobio cannot read minds. In fact, he is as dense as a block of cement, unable to pick hints thrown directly to his face.
Kageyama is cocky and his only emotion seems to be anger. Hinata actually believes Tsukishima, who says the other is incapable of formulating a single coherent thought, and if he did have the ability to read minds, it wouldn't be surprising if Kageyama's was just constant static noise.
Hinata is friends with Kageyama. They are teammates. Kageyama is annoying and Hinata doesn't like him. Or so he tells his classmates, who are now constantly bugging him on why he never has lunch with them anymore. He doesn't know.
But actually he does know. Because he spends every single lunch break kicking his feet back into the metal staircase, besides Kageyama, who complains about his restlessness.
His only emotion seems to be anger, but mind reader Hinata Shoyo knows that his body always tells what his face doesn't.
He doesn't know when or why he first left his classroom to have lunch with him.
*
They are friends because they are teammates. The statement remains truthful, but its meaning is now completely warped, Hinata realizes, as Kageyama sits on his couch on a saturday afternoon. Their shoulders touch and Hinata doesn't know why.
Kageyama is blankly staring at the tv and if Hinata concentrates enough he could hear the elevator music playing inside his head.
Kageyama snorts, because of course he said that out loud.
Later he finds himself looking out the window to the sky outside, reds and oranges bleeding into his living room as he watches Kageyama's sister drive away, asking himself if the other has noticed the change he had so spectacularly missed.
Kageyama doesn't have friends outside of the volleyball club, whereas Hinata seems to be friends with everyone at school. People he doesn't remember ever talking to will call him by his first name at the hallways, yet he still spends lunch breaks kicking the metal steps and pretending he doesn't see Kageyama stealing bites of his food.
They hang out at each other's houses on the weekends, though it's mostly Kageyama getting his sister to drive him across the mountain to drop him off at Hinata's on saturday mornings, and as much as he wrecks his brain, he can't remember when that started.
*
Social butterfly Hinata Shoyo has no trouble cultivating friendships, yet he could be found blankly staring at the ceiling of his living room, wondering how he could be so emotionally perceptive when coming across people he wanted to befriend, yet completely failed to notice when someone else was befriending him instead.
He wonders if Kageyama did remember all the things he couldn't. But Kageyama's brain alternates between volleyball and elevator music, so he might as well be as oblivious as Hinata was just a couple days ago.
Maybe Tsukishima is right and he too is unable formulate a single coherent thought.
The next day Hinata doesn't kick the metal steps. Kageyama doesn't notice.
The metal staircase is silent. Looking up, the sky is of a quite ugly shade of dark gray. Hinata vaguely remembers yesterday's late night news announcing rainy weather as he stared at the living room ceiling once again, except this time he woke up to the sound of the early morning news channel, announcing a rainy friday afternoon, still on the living room couch.
A mental note is made, not to stay too late after practice, as he didn't want to be hit by rain on the way home. If he went home under rain it also meant Kageyama was mostly likely going to end up getting wet as well.
Hinata kicked his feet back, on the last step of the metal staircase, locking eyes with Kageyama at the bottom of the steps, who had a phone to his ear and scrunched up eyebrows. Hinata, who can read minds, for once couldn't see volleyball or static noise inside of his head, or rather written across his face.
Kageyama is sitting by his side on the last step, looking up at where the angry clouds cover up the sun. If he concentrates hard enough, Hinata could hear the absence of elevator music playing inside of his head.
"Who was that on the phone?" He asks, precisely because he's not actually a mind reader. Kageyama's parents will come back on sunday from an impromptu business meeting in Tokyo.
His face reads annoyed. His body reads afraid. His eyes stare at the horizon with such intensity that it wouldn't even be surprising if the clouds dispersed just for him.
*
The yellow pencil lays long forgotten on top of unfinished notes as he stares out the window into the dark gray outside. Sometimes a flash of lightning cuts the endless canvas of the sky and thunder can be heard from far away as the teacher's rambling about uninteresting equations becomes background noise to his brain's monologue.
Hinata wonders how Kageyama's brain works. His emotions don't reach his eyes. Except they do, but they always showcase something different from what his body does, almost as if trying to trick you.
Kageyama's eyes are blue and their gaze is intense. His eyes sparkle sometimes, and sometimes they don't, but Hinata can almost read "eyes sparkling" written in bold letters across his forehead.
Kageyama's eyes are blue and Hinata's favorite color is not blue. But sometimes those very eyes can make his brain contradict itself, making the color wheel spin.
When Kageyama is asleep, his eyelashes flutter slightly and his emotions reach his face. Except they don't. Hinata is not reading, he's just looking. The color wheel spins and lands on red. Hinata is glad there are no actual mind readers because if there were, he'd almost be embarrassed at the "I want to kiss him" probably written in bold letters across his own forehead.
Lightning strikes. The first droplets of rain start to hit the glass window.
He looks back down at the papers on top of the wooden desk and finds x, trying to pretend his brain plays elevator music and that he isn't capable of formulating a single coherent thought.
*
Hinata Shouyou has an umbrella. A yellow umbrella with a small duck charm that Natsu insisted on taking home for him back in middle school, because yellow is his favorite color.
He took his yellow umbrella to school the last time it rained, three weeks prior. He remembered opting for walking instead of riding his bike up the hill. Kageyama called him at some point, asking him what was taking so long.
But thinking back at it, three weeks ago Hinata went home under rain. He remembered walking to his house with only his jacket covering his head, getting most of his textbooks wet and staying home with a fever the next day. Kageyama had also shown up at around 8pm with pork buns and called him a dumbass.
Now he finds himself staring at a yellow umbrella with a duck charm right next to his own bag in the club room. There is no doubt it's his as there is a small "HS" written on the back of the charm. Lightning strikes outside. The glass windows shake with the following thunder. Someone drops a deodorant bottle. A tiny paper falls from the umbrella.
"I pickpocketed you a few weeks ago. it was an emergency". It reads.
He can't help but laugh at the "anonymous" note that is so obviously written in Nishinoya's handwriting. As he turns around to address it, the door of the club room is slammed shut, startling Sugawara, who is reaching for his deodorant beneath the benches, making him hit his head from below.
One of Nishinoya's outdoor shoes is taken in retaliation.
*
Inside of the gym the rain sounds impossibly louder, reverberating from the metal roof outside. Staying late after practice was no longer a concern, seeing as the sky had already begun unleashing its wrath since way before the end of class.
The air is humid and this weird tension seems to swirl around with every blow of the wind, making Hinata shiver and look back at his setter one more time. Kageyama sports a scowl, which weirds him out because he knows that Kageyama isn't angry, but he looks so out of it that Hinata starts to doubt his own judgement.
Lightning strikes. Nishinoya's receive sends the ball up and Hinata is already running, jumping up seconds before the ball touches Kageyama's hands. Thunder booms outside, making the windows shake and echoing all around the gym. Hinata spikes the air.
All of his teammates look startled, a few laughing at Sugawara, who instinctively crouched down at the loud noise. Kageyama looks irritated. Maybe he dislikes the rain like Suga-san, the noise does make it difficult to concentrate. He remembers Kenma complaining to him about it, upset with Kuroo for not letting him skip class on rainy days, backed up by Bokuto, who seemed to have a similar problem with Akaashi. Maybe it's a setter thing?
Brought back by a water bottle being shoved in his hands, he looks up.
"Does Oikawa-san like the rain?"
Kageyama stops drinking from his own bottle, giving him a confused look. "I don't think so?"
"Are all setters secretly cats?"
"Did you just call me a furry?"
Their increasingly louder bickering regarding Kageyama's hypothetical fursona is interrupted by a second flash of lightning and a loud crash, followed by all the gym lights going out.
Yamaguchi lets out a shriek that has Tsukishima doubling over in laughter, or at least Hinata assumes he is doubled over, seeing as the gym is now pitch black and he can't see a thing.
Coach Ukai's phone lights up their way back to the clubroom, where more flashlights start coming to life. The school building is shrouded in darkness and the streets resemble a horror movie without the orange glow of the streetlights.
Most of his teammates are calling their parents in hopes of not having to walk home in the unforgiving rain during a blackout. Hinata curses at himself, knowing that living the farthest away leaves him with no other option other than to walk alone in the dark. A quick text to his mother, however, indicates that the lights are working just fine at the other side of the mountain.
Some of them leave. Some stay. Hinata knows that sooner or later he will have to swallow the apprehension and just get on with it, but for now his eyes are settled on Kageyama's barely visible face and he curses his lack of actual mind reading abilities.
His face reads annoyed. His body reads afraid.
"Do you think the lights are on at your house?"
Kageyama doesn't reply but instead looks up in a way he has never done before, handing his own phone to Hinata.
Skimming over the text on the screen he sees "Is it ok in there?" and "Are you coming back tonight?" both being replied to with a "no" from Miwa.
I don't want to go, Kageyama says, except he doesn't actually say it, because he would never say it. Hinata just knows, because he always does.
Upon hearing Nishinoya start complaining about a missing shoe, Hinata stands up and smiles.
"Come with me."
"To your house?"
"No, to the Tokyo Tower. Of course it's to my house you dumbass"
And Kageyama reluctantly agrees, to which he is only a little bit surprised. He knows Kageyama wouldn't give in so easily in a regular situation, but he also knows that this is by no means a regular situation. At all.
Kageyama is quickly pushed out of the clubroom, before Nishinoya can make his way to their side asking about his missing left shoe.
He wonders if the yellow duck umbrella is big enough for the two of them.