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“Do you see Meian?” Atsumu hissed.
Hinata peered obediently out the sliding glass of the little Family Mart inside Tokyo Station. “Uh huh. He’s taking the line for Ueno. Um, Atsumu –”
Atsumu tugged him back by the collar. “Then come back in!”
Hinata rubbed his head. “You know I trust you and everything,” he said.
“But?” Atsumu was scanning the cooler for a snack.
“But you do a lot of sneaking around, don’t you?”
“Pick an onigiri,” Atsumu said, dismissively. “Don't stress about it. Bokuto and I’ve been messing around like this since we joined.”
“Okay. Tuna mayo,” said Hinata. “Wow, are you paying for me?”
“Who said that?” Atsumu scoffed, but then saw the glowing look in Hinata’s eyes. “Right, ‘course I’m paying. My treat. Generosity of the spirit and all.”
“You’re so cool, Atsumu,” Hinata chirped, and Atsumu was beginning to get the sense that Hinata had a pretty good grasp of human psychology.
“Go check again. Is Meian gone?”
“Yup.”
“Okay. And Bokuto?”
“Still in the 7-11 across from us,” Hinata answered.
“What’s he doing with his hands?”
“It’s a glass door,” Hinata said, sounding confused. “Can’t you see?”
Atsumu bopped him on the head. “I’m training you, ingrate.”
“A peace sign. Two peace signs. He’s holding his shopping bag between his teeth.”
Atsumu grinned. “Coast is clear, my apprentice. Let’s go!”
Hinata grinned right back, if confusedly. “Couldn’t you have just texted?” he asked, which was a silly question that Atsumu pretended not to hear because whatever, and anyway Hinata was sprinting out faithfully after Atsumu, who had keys to the gym like a badass, and who was going to give his spikers a few more tosses after-hours without Meian knowing like the greatest, most generous badass the Jackals had ever seen.
That was how Atsumu spent his Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays: playing volleyball with his spikers late into the evening so they had to scramble back to the station to catch the last train of the night. Atsumu left Bokuto and Sakusa at the gates, dashing for the Marunouchi towards Ikebukuro with a duffel and Hinata at his side.
On that first night, both of them breathless from the sprint to the train, the doors closing behind them, Atsumu had stared at the crop of sunshine hair at his elbow and blurted out in belated surprise, “What, you’re coming home with me?”
And Hinata had beamed and said, “Only if you want!” which made Atsumu squint and frown because what did that mean?
Apparently it meant nothing except that Hinata just lived in the same direction as him (“Oh, you live this way too?” “Mhm!”) which was rather disconcerting because Atsumu had never really thought of Hinata as someone who did the normal human things like sleeping or taking time off or relaxing on the sofa or whatever (“You mean you have an apartment? Where you live?” “Mhm!”) but as it turned out Hinata could get quiet, too, quiet enough that Atsumu dozed right off next to him on the train.
Which became the routine. Atsumu spent his Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays becoming very well acquainted with the crook of Hinata’s neck, from where Hinata would shake him gently awake before his stop with a reminder to, “Get some proper rest, Atsumu!”
Anyway, all that extra practice paid off because three, maybe four weeks after Hinata had first joined Black Jackals, they’d perfected a quick that Atsumu refused to believe was an iota slower than what Kageyama had given Hinata at their best.
“Christ on a cracker!" Bokuto had shrieked, his eyes round as moons.
“Hm,” Sakusa had said, which was actually really kind of him.
And Hinata had seemed very pleased with it, too. Hopping onto the train later that night, Hinata was talking quietly, but the wattage of his smile spoke differently. “It’s like you’re saying with your tosses, This is just for you! A perfectly prepped meal with all your favorite flavors to lift you up when you’re feeling hungry! Kaboom! Kabam!”
“Wow, that’s pretty eloquent of me,” Atsumu mumbled, already drowsy. His head found the soft stretch of Hinata’s neck which smelled, to his credit, a little sweaty but ultimately rather nice.
There was a beat, and then Atsumu felt Hinata’s fingers running curiously through his hair. “Asleep already?”
“No, I’m listening,” Atsumu yawned, and then fell promptly asleep.
The truth was that usually, Atsumu wasn’t so great at falling asleep. Osamu called it no rest for the wicked and by wicked I mean you but Atsumu called it a minor case of self-flagellation: anytime he hit a pillow his brain went into hyperdrive revisiting over and over again every single play he’d missed that day, which was why he tried to knock himself out on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays with overzealous hours of volleyball. But in the last three, maybe four weeks, there were fewer and fewer missed plays to regret, though whether that was because of himself or because of Hinata Shoyo, he wasn’t in any state to answer.
“Psst,” Atsumu said to Hinata as they were stretching the next afternoon.
“Nobody’s around,” Hinata said, sounding amused.
Ignoring him, Atsumu, bent over his butterfly stretch, surreptitiously flashed two peace signs and bared his teeth.
Hinata coughed a laugh. “But it’s Tuesday,” he said.
Atsumu rolled over and shrugged like it was no big deal, like he wasn’t restless and pining on the days that he had to ride the subway home alone. Because he wasn’t. “Don’t want Tobio thinking you’re better off with the Adlers,” he said instead. Their match was in a couple weeks, and Atsumu had every intention of asserting his dominance over that egg-headed pipsqueak.
“I don’t think he could,” Hinata answered, and gave Atsumu that wide, trusting smile which did weird things to Atsumu’s chest about twenty times a day.
Hinata didn’t comment when it became clear that Atsumu hadn’t invited Bokuto or Sakusa, didn’t even seem to notice anything different at all, just dove straightaway into the storage room and pulled out a cart of volleyballs. But it was not lost on Atsumu that it was just the two of them, perfectly alone, with all the time and space he’d ever need for – for what, exactly?
“Show me how you do your serves?” Hinata said.
For serves. Right. Atsumu stood behind Hinata, adjusting his stance, very careful not to look at the curve where his neck met his shoulder. Hinata tossed, and then served. “Not bad,” Atsumu said, happily. “You’re gonna knock ‘em flat.”
They tried all sorts of things, from Hinata’s awful jump-floater (“Maybe don’t pull that one out in an official match?”) to Hinata’s splendid serve-receives (“Got you on that one, Atsumu!”) to a particularly devious minus-tempo quick set that had both of them hollering and running victory laps around the court. Eventually Atsumu hollered himself hoarse and collapsed, perfectly exhausted, against the wall (“Don’t touch me, Hinata, I’m dead.”).
Hinata sat down gamely next to Atsumu’s corpse. “You should really get some proper rest,” he said, poking Atsumu in the cheek.
Atsumu cracked open one eye. “I said don’t touch me,” he growled, but Hinata only grinned and pinched his cheeks fondly.
“You’ve got a pimple on your chin, Atsumu,” Hinata observed, which was when Atsumu came back to life for the sole purpose of wrestling Hinata Shoyo, insolent twerp, down to face his penance on the gym floor.
As usual, the last train of the night was practically empty. “Man, Osamu’s going to be on my ass,” Atsumu realized, suddenly wide awake. “I left the dishes in the sink all day.”
“It’s so nice to have a roommate,” Hinata said wistfully, which was really missing the point altogether.
“My roommate’s going to cut me up and serve me for lunch, Hinata, or do you not care?”
Hinata blinked up at him, and then dropped his head, in a stunning reversal of roles, against Atsumu’s shoulder. “I thought you were already dead?”
There was a very witty and very clever rejoinder on the tip of Atsumu’s tongue but he swallowed it, and anything else he was thinking about saying, when he saw Hinata’s eyes close. There was a small smile still on his face, and Atsumu’s heart was doing palpitations, both from the fear of impending death by culinary lingchi and from whatever was going on here, with the warm, trusting weight of Hinata pressed against his left side.
“So, uh, you don’t have a roommate?” Atsumu said, not sure what to do with the silence.
“Mm,” Hinata answered sleepily.
“Cool,” said Atsumu. A long moment. Hinata’s chest rose, and fell, and rose, and fell. “Uh, which is your stop? I’ll wake you for it,” he added, because that was what Hinata did for him, and then promptly felt like the world’s biggest idiot because Hinata did that for him since Atsumu’s stop came first.
“I live in Hongo,” Hinata said, just as Atsumu looked up and saw, with sudden, debilitating confusion, the sign for Hongo-Sanchome Station blur past the train window.
Atsumu turned and grabbed Hinata’s face with both hands. Startled, Hinata blinked his eyes open. “What do you mean you live in Hongo?” Atsumu demanded.
“Huh?” Hinata said.
“We just passed Hongo! If you live in Hongo, what have you been doing taking the train out to Shin-Otsuka with me? How the hell do you get back home?”
“Huh?” Hinata said again. Then, as if it were obvious, “I run!”
Atsumu knew his mouth was hanging open. “What do you mean you –”
“It’s only four kilometers,” Hinata interrupted, rubbing his eyes. He pried Atsumu’s hands on his face and set them, with a gentle pat, onto Atsumu’s lap. “It’s nice. Clears my head.”
“But with your bag?” Atsumu asked, shrilly. “At midnight? Through the cemeteries?”
Hinata laughed like he’d said something funny. “I go around those.” Then he seemed to sober up. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier. I just thought you’d sleep through your stop if nobody was around to wake you up.”
“I’m going to serve myself for lunch if Osamu doesn’t,” Atsumu said bleakly. “I can’t believe this. I’m bringing you home with me. I don’t care, I can’t let you perish on the side of the road knowingly. I’d be an accomplice in your murder!”
“Well,” said Hinata.
“No, I don’t care.”
“Well, we could go on a run together,” Hinata suggested, and then grinned at Atsumu’s face.
They of course did not go on a run back to Hongo together, because that would’ve been insane, and Atsumu was categorically not insane, yet. Osamu was standing in the kitchen radiating dark, murderous energies when they entered the apartment. Atsumu quickly pushed Hinata in front of him, thinking maybe the vibes would cancel out, or at least Hinata’s cute little face would take off the edge of Osamu’s rage.
“Don’t say anything unbecoming, ‘Samu,” Atsumu called, “We’ve got a guest tonight.”
Osamu set his cleaver down slowly as he took in the yawning, smiling face of Black Jackals’ newest wing spiker. “Karasuno,” he greeted.
“It’s Hinata, actually,” Hinata said, brightly. “It’s been a while! You look great!”
Osamu frowned like he was struggling to make sense of any of that. “Okay,” he said at last, then pinned Atsumu with a stare. “Why’d you bring him home? Does he need feeding? Where’s he going to sleep?”
“I’ll take the couch,” Atsumu said, with the air of self-sacrifice. “Don’t anybody worry about it.”
Hinata smacked him on the back. “Don’t be stupid! We can share your bed. I don’t mind.”
At that, Osamu stared at Atsumu until Atsumu was flushed red and annoyed about it. Then Osamu said, “There’s food in the fridge. I brought leftovers from work,” which cheered Atsumu up considerably.
“Not for you,” added Osamu, seeing his face change. “For Karasuno’s shorty over here. He looks washed out.”
“Yes!” said Hinata, off whom insults rolled like water when he wanted them to. It was incredible. Atsumu looked him over in amazement, which Hinata noticed and promptly misinterpreted.
“Don’t worry,” Hinata whispered conspiratorially. “I’ll share!” and even managed to ruffle Atsumu’s hair, which made Atsumu’s stomach drop, but only because of the realization that he must slouch really badly.
That night Atsumu slid into his bed after he was sure Hinata had already fallen asleep. The moon was out but Atsumu left the curtains open, selfishly, because he had this dreamy image of himself gazing at Hinata’s dreaming face and Hinata waking up under the moonlight to his deep, soulful eyes looking down at him. It was a delightful fantasy but in reality Atsumu was too embarrassed to do anything except curl up away from Hinata and pray that sleep took him quickly.
Hinata stirred. Atsumu felt him turn to one side, and then to the other, before curling up against Atsumu’s back, one cheek pressed into the space between Atsumu’s shoulder blades. “I can hear you thinking,” he said, his voice sleep-rough and muffled against Atsumu’s shirt. “What about?”
“Uh,” said Atsumu wildly. “About – about all the things we tried today?”
“Mm,” said Hinata. Atsumu felt his smile against his shoulder and held his breath, praying that only stethoscopes could hear a person’s heartbeat through their back. “A lot we missed, though.”
“Yeah, like, uh – blocks? Did we do blocks?”
“Mm,” said Hinata again. Suddenly Atsumu was being pushed back on his back, staring up in the moonlight at Hinata’s face above him, wearing a look of amused, and slightly drowsy, affection. “I was thinking something else.”
“Line shots?” Atsumu tried valiantly, and then with the sudden clarity of a ball smacking him in the face, realized the rapid thundering of heartbeats he was feeling weren’t just coming from his own chest.
“Sure, line shots,” Hinata said, before closing his eyes and leaning down to press a long, lingering kiss against Atsumu’s mouth.
They were both breathless, grinning at each other like they’d just squeezed through the closing doors of the last train to Ikebukuro. Hinata said, “How was that one?”
“Killer,” answered Atsumu, his voice breaking.
Then, bringing one hand to the back of Hinata’s head, he pulled him down for another kiss, this time sliding his tongue in just to hear Hinata whimper softly. Atsumu kissed him all the way down his jawline and then the hollow of his throat, before finally reaching the curve of his shoulder where, for the past three or four weeks, he had been pressing surreptitious kisses when Hinata thought he was asleep. It was just funny, really, that he would be doing this while awake, and that for once, he didn’t think he’d have any problems falling asleep later that night.