Chapter Text
Anyone who saw Hinata Shoyo would think he was really, really excited to start high school. They would be wrong. What he was actually excited about was going to a school with a male volleyball team. And not just any team: Karasuno. He had been dreaming of it for years, and it was finally happening.
It felt like the longest day of his life, but the lunch bell rang at last, and he ran up the stairs to look for class 3-5, where his future team captain would be waiting for him. It took him a while, though, trudging his way through the third-year, much-taller-than-him students, and he hadn’t even been the first to find his way to the captain, who was already reading an application when Hinata arrived.
“Captain Sawamura?” The guy met Hinata’s eyes and set the paper on his desk. “Hinata Shoyo!”
“Nice to meet you, Hinata,” he greeted him, amused at his enthusiasm. “Please, call me Daichi.”
“Yes, sir!” Hinata dug into his schoolbag and handed him a crumpled up application form. “I would like to join the volleyball team, please!”
“I assumed so,” smiled the captain. “What position were you in middle school?”
“I wasn’t really in a team.”
“Oh, you’re new to volleyball?”
“No, I tried to start a team, but nobody in my old school wanted to play. But I’ve been training as much as I've been able to, and I can jump really high, and I’m going to be the next Little Giant!”
Daichi gave him a slow nod. “Okay! Good to know.” He put his application on top of the other one. “You can come to practice tomorrow after class. Do you know where the gym is?”
“Of course! Thank you! See you tomorrow!”
He was so happy that he was skipping his way out the classroom, but he stopped sharply at the door, coming face to chest with a very tall boy.
“Watch where you’re going,” he said in a disinterested tone.
“Tsukishima, Yamaguchi. I was waiting for you.”
The pair went around Hinata to talk to Daichi, papers in hand, and he stood there for a second, taking his new teammates in. Teammates! He finally had teammates!
. . .
Hinata was still ecstatic during the afternoon classes, and through his bike ride home, and his energy didn’t dip as he spent the rest of the day training in his backyard, stopping only to make dinner for himself and his little sister.
It was after that, while he bounced his volleyball against the wall and thought about the homework he was already behind in, that he heard a strange noise coming from the darkness beyond his porchlight.
“Hello?”
He shook his head and turned back around, resuming his bouncing.
A branch cracked.
When he looked again, there was a black dog there. He couldn’t make out the breed, only the huge size, because in the next second he was on the ground, pinned down by the creature. He felt a sharp pain on his side, but he had no air in his lungs to scream. He struggled, rolled aside, swung his arms wildly into the air, catching nothing. When he managed to sit up with a cry of pain and look around, he was alone.
He almost thought he’d imagined it all, but he tried to stand up and, that time, did scream. The left side of his torso sported a huge, bleeding bite.
He started to panic.
“Shut up, Shoyo!” Natsu yelled from her bedroom. “I’m supposed to be asleep already!”
“Sorry!”
The window snapped closed again and Hinata gathered his thoughts. His parents weren’t home yet. Maybe he should call an ambulance. No, he should disinfect the wound first.
After washing it in the sink, it didn’t look so bad. It wasn’t as big as he’d thought and it had stopped bleeding, apparently. It didn’t feel right. It had been maybe five minutes, which seemed too soon. But Hinata had no illusions about his medical knowledge, so he decided it was probably okay to wait until his parents got back. The scare had left him drained of his usual spirits, so he haphazardly dressed the wound and lay on his bed to wait.
. . .
When his alarm went off, he jumped up, tugging on his bandages. They were still there, but he wasn’t in pain. Breakfast wafted in from the kitchen.
“Mom?” He started making his way downstairs, undressing the wound that… was no longer there.
“Good morning, Shoyo.” Her smile dwindled a little when she saw his face, and the bandage still half stuck to his skin. “What happened?”
“I… had a wound, but…”
“Let me see.” Hinata knew what was coming, but was still surprised to hear it out loud. “There’s nothing here.”
“I know.”
“You shouldn’t waste bandages like this, Shoyo.”
“I’m sorry. I really thought I needed it.”
“It’s okay, honey.” She fixed his hair with her fingers, combing it into a more controlled mess. “Just don’t do it again. Be a dear and make sure your sister is ready for school.”
So maybe he had imagined it after all. A downright hallucination, if he had believed it so strongly that he had actually bandaged himself up. But that was a problem to ponder later. Now it was time for another day of classes and then, at last, his first practice with his new volleyball team.
. . .
After running to change into his sport clothes and running some more to get to the gym, Hinata was feeling ready. Refreshed. Positively stoked. Until he saw another guy waiting for the gym’s door to be unlocked.
Black hair, a face like he’d just eaten a lemon, towering a full head over him. The King of the Court. The boy he’d lost to in the first and last volleyball match he’d ever played, almost a year ago.
“You?” both boys said at once, with twin horrified faces.
“Wow, they got here before us, even!” a voice said behind them. “Hello, I’m Sugawara Koshi, but you can call me Suga.”
They introduced themselves to the senior while the captain opened the gym, stealing angry glances at each other. How was Hinata supposed to get revenge against him if they were on the same team? And why would he be mad at him? He won the match!
More guys arrived at the gym, so they started setting up for the training session. Daichi introduced the new and the old members and they warmed up in pairs. And, of course, Hinata got paired up with the King, who he now knew as Kageyama Tobio and who, so far, appeared to only have two faces: angry and surprised-angry.
“Why are you mad at me?” Hinata finally asked. “I’m the one who lost!”
“It’s none of your business.”
“Then stop looking at me like you’re going to murder me.”
“It’s my face.” A third expression: annoyed-angry.
Hinata wasn’t sure why it was being so hard to let it go. He wasn’t usually an angry person, but something about the guy was getting to him.
“Hey, your Highness and Tangerine Shortcake, can you shut up and train?”
That came from the tall boy he had bumped into in class 3-5, Tsukishima Kei, who seemed to be that blunt all the time. The other freshman, Yamaguchi Tadashi, laughed.
Hinata grabbed the ball that Kageyama tossed him, trying to steady his breath, but when he tried to pass it back, he didn’t. It was stuck to his hand.
“What…?” He grabbed it with his other hand and unstuck it from his fingernails. No, claws. His hands had claws. “What is happening to me!?”
The first face he saw was Kageyama’s, and while he seemed surprised, he didn’t look shocked. Hinata, on the other hand, was losing his mind.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay!” Suga tried to grab his arms, but Hinata backed up, bumping against a wall, shaking his hands like the claws were just going to fly off his fingers. “I thought you said this one wasn’t a wolf.”
“He wasn’t yesterday.” Daichi appeared next to Suga. “Did anything happen to you last night, Hinata?”
“What is happening…”
“Hinata. Look at me.” Suga’s eyes changed from brown to a glowing red. “Calm down.”
Despite the shock, Hinata felt himself calming down. Suga’s eyes were hypnotic, and he saw himself reflected on them. His own eyes were bright yellow.
“How did you… Are my eyes yellow right now?”
“You’re a werewolf, Hinata.”
“I’m a… what now?” It made as much sense as anything else that had happened since the previous night, so he found himself accepting it without much struggle. “And you too… and Daichi?”
“We are all werewolves, dumbass,” Tsukishima said, fixing his glasses.
“I thought you were crows,” a man also sporting glasses and a halo of dark, curly hair said from the door. “Is this the volleyball club?”
“Yes. It’s just an inside joke,” Daichi said, giving Hinata a quick once-over. No glowing eyes, no claws. Just a boy. “Can I help you?”
“I’m Takeda Ittetsu. I’m the faculty advisor assigned to the Karasuno Volleyball Club.”
Daichi apologized and started to introduce himself.
Suga leaned closer to Hinata. “We’ll talk after practice. But I’m going to need you to stay calm until then. Can you do that for me?”
Hinata promised without much confidence, but after the proper introductions to Mr. Takeda, Daichi paired him with a second-year named Ennoshita, and they made sure to keep Kageyama and Tsukishima as far from him as possible.