Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Hinata Shouyou

Until very recently, Hinata Shouyou had been a very normal teenager. That changed two days ago. I don’t think I need to explain - just take a look around.

Hinata is kneeling on the floor. In front of him is a bin, overflowing with blood-stained tissues. There are clothes on the bed and blankets on the ground and flower petals everywhere. There are tears.

Can you tell what’s happened?

Hinata heaved once more, for good measure. His phone buzzed somewhere on the periphery of his consciousness. Was it Kageyama?

At the thought of his setter, he felt another twinge within his lungs.

Slowly, he crawled towards his desk. His phone screen was bright, the only source of light in the room. On it was the name he both dreaded and craved.

Kageyama: oi boke, stupidshima, yamaguchi, and yachi want to go see a movie tmrw.

Kageyama: do you want to go?

Hinata grabbed the phone and helped himself up using the desk. His head swam a little bit, but he shook it away. There were more important things to focus on - namely, Kageyama.

He shuffled across the room towards his bed, nearly tripping along the way. The streetlight outside his window flickered, once, twice, before going out with a ‘zzzt’. With a sigh, he flopped onto the bed and groaned. His phone vibrated again.

Kageyama: boke, are you there?

Hinata: yes yes

Hinata: ofc i wanna go!! whatre we watching :D

Kageyama: jurassic park. stupidshima won’t watch anything else.

Hinata: haha okkkkk

His throat suddenly constricted. The now-familiar feeling of the flowers inside his chest came back. The texts in front of him blurred.

Hinata couldn’t talk to him like this. He’d know something was up immediately. The conversation had to end, now.

...but he loved talking to Kageyama, so much.

Okay, just five more minutes.

Kageyama: ok, i’ll let them know. yachi is saying that we’ll all meet at one of our houses and then go to the cinema together.

Hinata: whose house? 

Kageyama: idk.

Kageyama: definitely not yours.

Hinata: hey!!

Hinata: what’s wrong with my house!!

Hinata: bakageyama >:P

Kageyama: you live on the other side of the mountains, hinata boke.

Kageyama: nobody wants to cross the mountains just to see your face and then immediately go back.

Hinata: :(

Kageyama is typing…

Hinata’s head churned violently. Suddenly, it felt like the bed beneath him had vanished, like he was falling down, down, into the core of the Earth and whatever lay beyond. Flower petals climbed up his throat into his mouth, choking him, suffocating him. He sat upright frantically, thrashing about, looking desperately for something to help him.

Nothing. There was nothing.

He bent over and began coughing, determined not to stop until every last bit of flora was out of his body. On and on they came out, petals of all different shapes and colours, though he couldn’t tell the differences too clearly - the room was too dark and the petals were soaked in blood. 

Long, long minutes passed. Distantly, he heard the front door open and shut, heard his mom and sister move about downstairs, calling out a ‘hello’ to him. Finally, he could take a deep breath. And another one. And a third.

His lap was smothered in flowers.

God, I need to get my shit together. I need to start saying goodbye.

Hinata wasn’t a fool, and he didn’t live under a rock. He knew perfectly well what Hanahaki Disease was, and what it did to you. He knew his setter.

Kageyama’s true love was volleyball. There was simply no space in his heart for Hinata.

He was doomed. 

Chapter Text

Kageyama Tobio

Kageyama glanced at his phone for the umpteenth time. It wasn’t like Hinata to disappear mid-conversation, without warning. 

Two hours had already passed since his last text, though, and he had yet to make an appearance. Kageyama disliked feeling like he was being clingy, but he hadn’t been able to help himself from sending a few texts of concern. 

He decided to give it a rest, setting his phone to ‘do not disturb’ with a small sigh. Hinata had either fallen asleep or had just gotten distracted with something else entirely. There was no reason to worry so much, or fret like a mother hen. Hinata was fine.

Practice was to begin early tomorrow. He lay down and waited for sleep.

“Just you? Where’s Hinata?”

Kageyama turned to see Suga walking towards him. The expression on his senpai’s face surely mirrored his own: confusion and worry. 

“I don’t know. He’s usually here before I am.”

Suga hummed. “Have you called him? Texted?”

“He hasn’t been responding since last night.” Kageyama frowned. “I wonder if something happened to him?”

Suga clapped him on the shoulder twice before moving past him to unlock the gym. “Don’t mind, Kageyama, Hinata never misses practice. I’m sure he’ll turn up eventually.”

He didn’t turn up.

Not surprisingly, the movie plans were cancelled.

Chapter Text

Hinata Shouyou

A light tap at his door roused him from his fretful sleep. His mother poked her head in as he struggled to sit up. He was tangled in his sheets.

“Shouyou, dear, do you want to come down for breakfast or should I bring it up here?”

Hinata sighed. Instead of answering, he opened his arms wide. His mother came to him immediately, sitting on his bed and taking him into his arms. As he relaxed against her comfortable warmth, his mind travelled across the mountain to the volleyball gym.

It would have been the middle of morning practice right now. He could almost hear the slams of balls, the shouts and the laughs.

His mother gently brushed the hair off his forehead.

“I love you, dear. Come downstairs, let’s have some breakfast.”

Hinata whimpered but got up nonetheless. “Ma…”

“Yes, Shouyou?”

“I miss school.”

His mother looked back at him from the door with a soft, sad smile on her face. She knew the real meaning behind his words, knew who it was that Shouyou craved.

“I love you, dear,” she said again. A few petals fluttered against the floor.

The hours ticked by slowly. Listless, Hinata sat at his window and watched the sun crawl across the sky.

His phone buzzed somewhere behind him. Opting to ignore it, he instead turned his gaze to his desk. It was littered with half-finished goodbye notes, to his family, his classmates, his teammates...but not to Kageyama.

Somehow, he couldn’t think of a single thing to say to him besides the obvious, ‘I love you’.

He had to try, though. Kageyama deserved an explanation.

As he sat down and shuffled the papers around, readying himself to just spew whatever came to his mind, his phone began to ring. He sighed, waiting for it to stop and become a missed call, but it didn’t. Whoever was calling was pretty insistent.

Must be Kageyama, then.

With another great sigh, and a slightly faster heartbeat, he answered. “Hello?”

“Why weren’t you at school today?”

“Straight to the point, huh?”

He could almost feel Kageyama frown at the other end of the line. No mystery why - the bubbly happiness that was usually evident in Hinata’s voice was nowhere to be found.

“Wow, boke, you must be really sick. Don’t play any volleyball until you’re better.”

“Yes, meanie-yama, I know, you don’t have to say it and remind me! I feel bad enough already, don’t go making it worse!”

“Okay. Then I’ll bring you some meat buns later.”

“What? No! No, do-”

The line beeped. Kageyama had hung up on him, most likely out of embarrassment from offering to do something so nice.

Hinata groaned. How the hell am I supposed to hide this from him?

Chapter Text

Kageyama Tobio

As soon as practice wrapped to a close, Kageyama made his way to Sakonishita. It felt a bit strange, walking past the bike racks and not seeing Hinata there, but whatever. It was just for a day.

“Kageyama! Wait for us!”

He turned, slightly irritated at the delay, but who could deny Yamaguchi? He and Yachi were jogging towards him, wide smiles lighting up their faces. Tsukishima trailed behind them, fiddling with the cord on his headphones. If Kageyama possessed the ability to read thoughts, he was sure that he’d hear, ‘ugh, not the King’, from the tall blonde.

“You going straight home, or to Sakonishita?”

“Sakanoshita, yeah. I have to get some meat buns.”

Yachi grinned. “Are they for Hinata?”

Tsukishima snickered. “Aw, I guess even the King can act a bit human when it comes to his little boyfriend.”

Kageyama felt heat rush all the way up the top of his head. He sputtered, sounding a bit like an old car engine. “I- he- b- boyfriend?! No! I’m just getting meat buns! I- Wh- Who gave you the idea-?!”

His teammates’ laughs echoed up into the evening sky. The clouds were pink and orange, as if they, too, were blushing with Kageyama.

The walk to Hinata’s house is a familiar one, a path he’s walked with the red-head many times before. They had a routine for when they visited each other’s homes: eat, shower, homework, volleyball, and then leave. It was comfortable, and Kageyama would be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy those nights. Maybe we can do it again today, if he’s not too sick?

Before he even realized, he was at his destination. He shifted his grip on the paper bag of meat buns, wondering why there were little sweat marks on it. He shouldn’t be nervous, right? This was a totally normal thing to do. They bought each other food all the time.

Kageyama had barely knocked thrice before the door flew open. A messy mop of orange hair flashed before his eyes, the bag was whipped from his hand, and he caught a glimpse of a wide (and slightly nervous?) grin before the door slammed shut again. His fist was still in the air, angled for another knock.

From the other side of the door, he heard Hinata.

“Sorry Bakageyama! Don’t want you catching my germs! I’m almost better though, so I’ll see you tomorrow! Thanks for the food!”

Hinata’s voice sounds a little strained, and sad, but Kageyama chalked it up to illness. His bubbly spiker would be back to normal soon, so no worries.

Wait... his bubbly spiker?

“Okay, boke. See you then.”

The walk home is beautiful that day. The sky just kept getting more and more saturated with sunset, pinks and oranges and the slightest hints of blue. The colours wash over their small town, of which Kageyama has a perfect view from where he’s standing, at a turn on the side of a mountain road.

The absolute peace permeates everything, even Kageyama’s usually racing thoughts. He takes a deep breath, and another, and a third. Time seems to slow down, in a way that only happens occasionally during volleyball matches, when the ball has left his hands in a perfect toss to Hinata, who’s flying in front of him.

Practice was lonely without that shrimp, he thinks with a small smile. I missed him jumping around everywhere like some kind of stupid frog.

His thoughts move on to other aspects of Hinata. His smile, his hair, the sound of his laugh after he lands a successful spike. Hinata’s so bright, like a little piece of the sun.

Kageyama feels lucky to have a partner like him, someone who’s just as passionate about volleyball as he is. Someone who’s on the same wavelength as him, both on the court and off of it.

The realization that Kageyama has found a best friend, when just a year ago he’d been completely alone, stuns him.

To his left, the sun brushes the horizon. Kageyama glances at his watch, I really should be getting home, but suddenly he’s rooted to his spot. A memory, just a few weeks old, is playing (without permission!) in his head.

Hinata, standing a little way from where he is right now, at the top of the hill. This is the point where their paths home diverge. He’s holding onto his bike and smiling back at Kageyama over his shoulder, the most massive grin that he’s ever seen. The sunset had been all around him. He’d looked like a painting.

Kageyama remembers how his heart had trembled, and then started hammering.

Hinata had looked so beautiful.

Now that he’s thinking about that moment again, his heart is feeling the same way that it did then. His second realization in as many minutes dawns on him, though this one is perhaps closer to the lines of ‘epiphany’. All the moments, all the smiles, everything suddenly makes sense.

The idea that he might feel something more for Hinata has reached him, been carried in with the tide, but he pushes it away. He flings it back into the ocean as hard as he can, because that idea is terrifying. It’s so scary, so stupid.

Hinata would never like him - how could someone like the sun want to be with someone like the nighttime shadows? - and therefore, he could never like Hinata. It would mess up volleyball, and their friendship, and Kageyama doesn’t want to risk it. The two most important things in his life...he’d much rather keep them as they are right now, thank you very much.

Frazzled, his earlier sense of tranquility nowhere to be found, Kageyama turns and rushes home. He wills himself to push the thoughts completely out of his mind. He has an iron will, after all, so it won’t be as hard as it might have been for others.

But his heart refuses to stop racing, and his cheeks won’t cool down.

Chapter Text

Hinata Shouyou

Kageyama,

You’ve probably noticed that you haven’t seen much of me the past week. That’s because I found something out and I couldn’t go to school or volleyball practice, or hang out with you.

I didn’t lie when I told you I’m sick, but it’s not really the truth, either. I have Hanahaki Disease. I’m sure you know what that is, but just in case you don’t, you volleyball-brain, it’s when you love someone who doesn’t love you back, and flowers start to grow in your lungs. You start to cough up petals first, but when it gets worse, you cough up whole flowers.

I started coughing whole flowers this morning. They were red roses. You said once that those were your favourite flowers. The problem with roses is that they have thorns. My throat really hurts now.

The person I love is you, Kageyama. I’m not angry that you don’t love me back. I knew you never would, since you love volleyball. I get that. It’s okay.

I just wanted to tell you. I thought that you should know what’s going on, since it involves you. You’re losing your volleyball partner too, so that sucks.

I’m sorry, Kageyama. I love you,

Hinata

Sighing heavily, Hinata set down his pen and swept his hand over the note, throwing the eraser crumbs to the ground. This was his tenth attempt at writing it, and while he still wasn’t pleased with the result, he could feel the deadline creeping closer. This version would have to do.

He folded the note as neatly as his trembling fingers could manage and placed it in his pocket. Nighttime had already fallen a while back, but that didn’t bother Hinata. He knew the way to Kageyama’s house from his own like the back of his hand, and the fact that it was dark outside was just a minor technicality. He’d biked over the mountains at night countless times.

He padded downstairs and whispered to his mother as he pulled his shoes and jacket on. “I’m just going to drop something off at Kageyama’s house quickly, I’ll be back soon.”

A soft, very sad smile followed him as he shut the door.

Hinata biked slowly. As much as he wanted to get this over with as soon as possible, he didn’t want to overexert himself and have to stop at the side of the road to cough his lungs out. 

The stars shifted overhead, bright white sparks in a sea of dark blue. He almost wished that the waves would rush down to Earth and sweep him away, flush out the flowers from his lungs.

It would be terrifying, and it would definitely hurt less than what he was feeling now.

By the time Hinata gets home from his delivery, it’s close to midnight, and he’s wheezing from the exertion. His lungs, faithful and robust, simply cannot handle this much exercise anymore.

He slowly climbed off his bike and let it fall onto the ground. There was no energy left for him to lock it up where it usually stayed, or even to prop it up against the wall. It felt like liquid agony was coursing through his veins as he stumbled to the door and turned the knob.

He collapses just inside the front door, the cold night swishing in behind him.

The last thing he sees is Natsu’s horrified face. The last thing he hears is her desperate yell for their parents.

Chapter Text

Kageyama Tobio

His mother tells him at breakfast that there’s a letter waiting for him. It slides across the table, a single sheet of slightly-crumpled lined paper, folded neatly into quarters. On the top, written in slightly wobbly kanji, is Tobio .

He takes it, puzzled.

Maybe he’s just imagining it, but where his fingertips brush the paper, it burns.

A glance at his phone tells him to put it aside, for now. He’ll read it once he’s at school. He’s running late today, which is unusual for him, and he needs to make sure it doesn’t get too bad.

Hinata isn’t at practice again.

“But I thought he was almost better?” Yachi asked, her eyes wide and confused. Kageyama frowned.

“I thought so too. That’s what he told me.”

Dachi clapped a hand down onto Kageyama’s shoulder. “Don’t mind it. I’m sure he’ll be back up and running again soon. It’s Hinata, after all!”

As he watched the captain jog away, calling for everyone to begin their laps, he muttered, “That’s what you said yesterday.” 

Practice, predictably, goes terribly. Kageyama’s focus is anywhere but the drills. His serves fumble into the net; his spikes are all blocked; even his sets suffer. The senpais keep throwing around worried glances, at him, at each other, at the other first years, but nobody has anything to say that can’t be understood already.

He’s way too frazzled to remember the note sitting heavy in his bag, smouldering like lit coal. His mind’s eye keeps drifting out of focus and sharpening on a small, loud fire-head, somewhere on the other side of the mountain. Somewhere that’s not by his side.

Once he’s in class, it only gets worse. Almost inexplicably, Hinata isn’t there - although, Kageyama tries to reason with himself, it’s not as if he’d ever only skip practice but still attend school.

The day lumbers on, long and slow and horribly quiet. He hadn’t noticed how much of a difference Hinata’s company had made to his daily life: someone to talk to, listen to, laugh at, laugh with, just coexist next to. Kageyama’s lonely without him, alone again in that same crippling way he’d been just a few months ago.

When had he become so attached to Hinata? When had he become something so much greater than just a teammate?

The last period of that day is a work period, and finally, Kageyama’s mind slows down enough to remember what he’d been putting off all day. He pulls the note out from his bag. It’s gotten a little bit crumpled, the crisp lines of the folds a little bent and worn. He tilts his head as he inspects it, holding it gingerly between his fingers.

If he’s being honest, he’s been delaying this all day. It’s probably a love confession from some starstruck girl who’d seen one of their matches; heaven knows the team gets many of those (except, ironically, inexplicably, Tanaka and Nishinoya, and don’t they lament it).

The note is, in fact, a love confession, but not one he’d been expecting

He really, really wishes it had been a starstruck girl, now.

H- Hinata? 

Hanahaki? 

Because of...him?

Kageyama’s head is spinning. It feels like the floor has disappeared, that the walls are falling in on him. Distantly, he thinks can hear police sirens and screams, desperate sobs, and he fervently wishes that this is a joke, but no. This is unmistakably Hinata’s handwriting and there are teardrops smudging some of the ink and that’s definitely a drop of blood in the corner, unsuccessfully smeared away.

Kageyama feels like he’s going to vomit. Hinata, Hinata, Hinata-

“Fuck,” he whispers.

Chapter Text

Kageyama Tobio

Kageyama sprinted to the gym as soon as the last bell rang, barely even checking to make sure that his bag was zipped up and he hadn’t left anything in the classroom. He has to hurry, to tell the team that he can’t make it to practice today because something urgent just came up and he needs to go, now, now, now.

And that’s all he says, but by the look in his eyes, they all know instantly that it’s got something to do with Hinata.

The raven-head bolted away before there was a chance for a response, but Suga and Daichi know not to let him be alone. They can feel in their gut, all of them, that something really, really bad has happened.

Any good mood that had previously been inside the gym is now gone, slinking out through the windows in swirls of thick grey fog. It feels like they’re suffocating.

Throwing balls and caution aside, Karasuno’s boy’s volleyball team follows their setter.

He’s got a head start, but luckily, he’s still in their sights, so there’s no need to waste time pulling out directions to Hinata’s house. Half an hour passes too slowly, too quickly. Their small town is filled with the sounds of desperate footsteps.

Kageyama pounds on the door to the Hinata household, realizing too late that it must have sounded atrociously rude. He can’t find it in himself to care and stands there, wheezing, crying, waiting for the door to-

Hinata’s mother, usually so recognizable with her wide easy grin, is now no longer the Hinata’s mother that he knows. That grin is gone; her eyes look so much older, so much sadder. Tear trails carve into her cheeks.

She knows immediately what’s going on. He’s beckoned in quickly.

“There’s not much time, dear. Please try your best.”

The desperate crow-haired boy bows at the waist and wastes no time sprinting down the familiar hall, up the familiar steps, to Hinata’s familiar room. Behind him, he can hear Mrs. Hinata greet the rest of the team and shoo them inside in much the same way.

Kageyama busts the door open.

His heart cracks, falls, and shatters. The pieces lie sprinkled among the flowers.

They’re everywhere. Everywhere. Red roses, so many of them, their thorns gleaming with blood. Petals of all shapes and sizes and colours, daisies, daffodils, anything else Kageyama could name and so many others that he couldn’t.

It looks like a florist’s dream, but horribly jarred. A florist’s dream, if that florist also happened to be a psychopathic serial killer.

His precious spiker is curled in bed, limp. His shoulder barely rises with each breath.

Is Kageyama still breathing? He’s not sure. He doesn’t think he’s taken a full breath since he opened that letter.

The small tangerine must be asleep, because he hasn’t responded to Kageyama’s entrance or subsequent breakdown. Or maybe he’s just that weak, to the point that he can’t bring himself to move. So Kageyama does, instead.

He tiptoes across the room, stepping in the spaces in between and around the flowers as if they were poisoned (weren’t they, in a way?). Once he’s close enough, he can see that Hinata is fast asleep, whimpering slightly.

Kageyama’s heart breaks some more. He kneels down at Hinata’s bedside, squashing some flora as he does so. He can feel the coolness seep into the knees of his trousers. It sends a shiver of fear and disgust up his spine, down his arms, through his fingers, which are now delicately stroking Hinata’s face and carding through his hair. Tentatively, he sweeps Hinata’s hair from where it’s stuck to his forehead with sweat.

And he talks. What else can he do?

“I’m sorry, boke, I should have known earlier, I should have come to you earlier.”

“Why didn’t you tell me when it started? I could have tried to help you.”

He doesn’t notice the team behind him, the gasps and sobs as they arrive at the doorway and take in the sight of Hinata and his room. It’s just him right now, him and Hinata and the hundreds of petals of death around them and their two fragile hearts, trembling.

Yachi can’t help it. She starts crying and buries herself in Yamaguchi’s arms in an attempt to stifle the noise, to try and get the scene out of her head.

Kageyama is still whispering to his spiker, his best friend, whose breathing is starting to slow down and now Kageyama is crying, too.

“Stay with me, boke, please.”

“You said you would beat me one day, aren’t we gonna go to Nationals together? To the Olympics?”

“I can’t imagine doing it without you.”

“Please stay, Hinata.”

“Please, Shouyou.”

He sobs. It echoes through the house and mingles with the quiet sounds of everyone else’s distress somewhere over his shoulder.

“Please stay, Shouyou, I love you so much, I need you here. You have to stay with me.”

Hinata stirs, seeming to wake a little. Kageyama’s breath hitches and completely stops. His chest is going to burst.

One last petal flutters from his mouth, a beautiful pink one. A rose petal.

His eyes open slowly.

“Sh- Shouyou?”

The wrecked boy looks at Kageyama, and with his tiny remaining bit of energy, he smiles.

A raspy, almost imperceptible whisper: “Tobio.”

end.