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Sakusa stares at his ceiling, feels the bags under his eyes throb with frustration ‘ why the fuck aren’t you asleep?’ which is the same question he’s been asking himself for years now. He doesn’t even know when it started, just knows that it never fucking ends. He sighs as he sits up, lets his feet plant on the carpet beside his bed. It’s near summer but it’s still cold at night so he puts on a robe before stepping outside his apartment.
He’s usually the only one awake around this hour but he sees Hinata already leaning against the railing, shivering but resistant. He must have not been used to Japan time yet. Hinata turns at the sound of a closing door. “Oh, hello.”
It’s the ‘Oh’ that catches him off guard because ‘oh’ usually sounds like disappointment but Hinata makes it sound like a surprise—a good yet gentle sound of surprise. He comes to lean on the railing, a few feet away from Hinata. “You’re up.”
“Jetlag.” He can hear the smile in Hinata’s voice without having to look at him. “I thought I’d adjust faster than this.”
Sakusa doesn’t say anything, doesn’t feel the need to.
“There are so many lights on in those buildings.” Sakusa thought he must be losing it. Of course, the lights are on in those buildings, they’re offices. “Must be lonely, dontcha think? Not being home at this hour.”
He looks at Hinata then, it seems his energy and chaos are watered down at this hour. At this hour, Sakusa seems to be able to make sense of him.
“Have you tried drinking warm milk?” Sakusa nods. “Ah, me too, just now. I think it’s working.”
Sakusa thinks he’s just doing it to escape (maybe he felt awkward?) but his thoughts are cut off by Hinata's yawn followed by a quiet laugh even though there was nothing funny happening, it just confuses him. Hinata gives him a fleeting gaze. “Few more minutes though, I like the wind.”
___________________________________
The next night, Hinata is the one that follows after him.
He comes out of his unit, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. He looks to Sakusa with a loopy smile before he rests his arms on the railing and his head on his arms, ducked down as if still attempting to sleep. “I thought I got it.”
Sakusa gives an amused hum, a passable laugh but it’s only the first ‘ha’ of the ‘hahaha’.
“You don’t talk a lot,” Hinata says, eyes peeking through his bangs. Did his eyes always look like they were touched by Midas? “Do you actually secretly hate me? I promise I’m not gonna let a fever out happen.”
Sakusa entertains him, but just this once. “It’s the kind of hour where you don’t talk.”
Hinata checks his phone. “It’s 2AM, usually teenagers talk about their feelings at this hour, don’t they? It makes it easier to open up...something about being in the dark. I don’t know, I always get people confessing at this hour like not about love but mostly just any sort of confession...maybe I should have been a priest.”
He snorts. “That field is too calm for you.”
“Guess you’re right.”He feels Hinata watch him, he doesn’t even have to look to know that he’s smiling. Still, he glances at him from the corner of his eye. He tells himself: it’s curiosity.
“Quit staring. It’s rude.”
“You talked a lot tonight.”
“Mm.”
___________________________________
Sakusa stops differentiating night one from night seventeen.
“You were a service ace today in training.”
Sakusa gives him a sideways glance. “It’s nothing special.”
“If I were any taller...you think I’d be as good as you?”
There’s something off about the statement, something not sitting right with how quiet his tone was. True, they talked in mostly hushed voices but tonight his voice is not quiet just to be quiet, it’s quiet because it’s lifeless. In daylight, he was more confident with himself but it seems fatigue and lack of sleep are setting in.
“Maybe,” Sakusa says, now watching him fully as Hinata turns to stare at the buildings once again. He wonders if they both looked just as lonely as those white office lights.
“It is...what it is...I guess.” Hinata laughs a little, tired. “Sorry about being weird tonight. Apparently, it’s that kind of night.”
“You’re right maybe you could do more if you were taller.” Hinata turns to him, confused. “But you’re not.”
Sakusa puts a finger in between Hinata’s knitted brows, tries to unknit. It’s only then that he notices how long Hinata’s eyelashes were. “I’m here because I’m lucky. You’re here because you’re you.”
When Sakusa pulls his finger away, Hinata continues to look at him. “I wonder which is better.”
He wonders when this began to happen, this slow unraveling of his walls. He never even knew he built them until they came crumbling down. Sakusa doesn’t recall the last time he ever genuinely cared for anyone’s distress but there was just something bothersome about having Hinata beside him and not having one of his smiles present.
The question remains: how long since he started to care?
There’s a quiet pause in between them but he feels the tension and the mood lift a little. Hinata steps closer to him, pressing his cheek against Sakusa’s arm. He can feel the hesitation and the careful way Hinata does this—he allows it.
“Thanks for comforting me.”
Sakusa can smell his floral shampoo. “It’s nothing special.”
___________________________________
Tonight Hinata is talking about his day.
He talks about how Atsumu got upset that his joke wasn’t laughed at by their teammates and got even more upset that Hinata tried to reassure him that it was funny in a ‘Kansai sort of way’. Sakusa knows all of this, he was there when it happened. It’s just that somehow they’ve silently agreed not to talk during the daylight. He never used to mind it but now, seeing him recall his day with a smile, he figures he kind of minds.
As he talks, Sakusa notes the few freckles on his cheek. He wants to count them and organize them by size but that would be weird. He notes the way Hinata always smiles when he talks. It’s very hard to miss—his smile was much too big and much too infectious to ever overlook. He wonders, briefly, how his hair would look like under proper sunlight. Would it look like fire? Would he get burned?
“How about you?”
Sakusa blinks. “What?”
“Tell me about your day.”
“You were there.” I wouldn’t like my day if you weren’t.
Hinata pouts. “I was but we weren’t together.”
Together. He thinks he quite liked that word if it was related to Hinata. He sees an image of him in sunlight, laughing as he walks right by him. It comes out of nowhere and it surprises him but what shocks him is the way that image made his heart flutter. Suddenly, tonight was quite hot.
A pause.
Sakusa looks away. “It was normal.”
Hinata takes a step closer to him, he leans against the railing just to try and see his face. “Most days are normal, I guess...uh....so how were the pancakes you ate this morning?”
Sakusa turns to him, gives him a weird look. “You saw that?”
“Oh...uh...” Hinata turns, taps on the railing. “I was just passing.”
He wants to ask more. He knew that Hinata was at the other end of the gym when he was eating, knew that he was supposed to be practicing with Bokuto. But, then again, Hinata might ask why he knew those things as well. “It was sweet. It was the last one in the conbini so I’m glad I got it.”
“You like sweet things?”
He nods.
Hinata looks down at his hands. Sakusa doesn’t know why he’s smiling. “That’s nice.”
Hinata continues to talk through the night, topics ranging from mundane to absurd which is normally dizzying but Sakusa finds that he catches on easily. Hinata jokes here and there that Sakusa wasn’t listening but he was, he knows this because he still remembers that Hinata has a sister that likes to dip her fries in ice cream.
Sakusa wonders when they’ve gotten so close but close in the sense of physical and...something else. He remembers there being space in between them but now he feels Hinata’s warmth beside him, would be weirded out if he didn’t feel the puff of air from Hinata’s laugh than if he did. He also knows parts of him that the others don’t, knows what temperature he prefers which is...why does he even know that? Well, more than that, why does he put in the effort to remember?
There’s the usual quiet that washes over them. It’s a natural kind of quiet and Sakusa’s thankful that he can finally be in a silent pocket of space with someone who doesn’t feel like it’s something suffocating and bothersome. It was nice to see this kind of Hinata. It was nice to feel as if he’s the only one who’ll ever get to see this quiet side of him. It’s all quite nice but Sakusa can’t help but want a little more than this ‘quite’, he wanted this thing and wanted it ‘ completely’. He wanted this and more. He wanted to know if Hinata liked breakfast or simply lived with it. He wanted to see Hinata in his best dressed so Sakusa can confirm that he definitely prefers it when he’s dressed down in his ugly checkered pajama pants. He wanted to see Hinata in full morning energy so Sakusa could wind down with him to this subdued nightly state of his.
He wanted this and more.
Perhaps, this has been a long time coming and he simply pushed it to the very back of his mind because, whatever this was, he never thought it'd see daylight. Now, he hears the birds chirping and he can hear the distant sound of cars driving past. Everyone was beginning to wake up and that included Sakusa.
The sun was already rising, the sky tinted a lighter shade of blue than the navy of night.
Hinata checks his phone before quickly stuffing it in his pocket again. He looks up at Sakusa and smiles. “I finally get to say it to you.”
He raises a brow.
“Good morning.”
Sakusa smiles, can’t quite help it.
“You look better in the mornings,” Hinata says, leaning his head on Sakusa’s shoulder.
“That implies I’m uglier in the evenings.”
Hinata laughs at this, his hand lightly hitting Sakusa’s arm then stays there holding onto him.
“I think...”
“Hm?”
“I think you look better in the mornings too.” Hinata props his chin on Sakusa's arm, gazing up at him curiously. He can only send him a flicker of a smile. “If it’s not a burden on you, I’d like to keep being with you in the mornings too.”
Hinata hums, smiling a little wider. “And the afternoons?”
Sakusa sees his own reflection in Hinata’s eyes. It’s oddly satisfying to know that, in his own eyes, Hinata was reflected back. “And the afternoons.”
In every hour.
In every moment.
“In any possible measure of time, I want to be with you.”
This and more.
Hinata’s cheeks are starting to turn pink. “I want that too.”
Sakusa doesn’t quite know what else to do after saying something so uncharacteristic but while he’s here, while they revelled in this saccharine moment with Hinata’s gaze looking so soft upon pink dusted skin, he leans down to press their foreheads together. There’s a light flutter in his chest when Hinata giggles upon contact. How long exactly has he felt like this that this moment almost seemed long awaited?
“Good morning, Shouyou.”