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It is pouring down rain when they walk out of the stadium, and for whatever reason that’s even better than walking into sunlight; it feels cleansing enough that the residual tension visibly leaves the team. The adrenaline that’s kept them propped up for the last three hours has finally drained out, and they stumble, all quiet grins and lazy claps to shoulders, to the bus.
Seats are taken according to some unspoken agreement: Nishinoya collapses against Asahi’s shoulder in the back, Asahi’s arm falling around the libero; Daichi and Suga take either side of the aisle a row in front of that; Yamaguchi and Tsukki sit a row behind Ukai, Yamaguchi’s head slumping to the window and Tsukishima leaning back into the seat; Narita and Kinoshita both clap Ennoshita on the back before next year’s captain lays out sideways along the row across from Tsukki and Yamaguchi; the former two second-years take the row behind him; Tanaka flops into Asahi’s other shoulder with a great whoosh of a sigh; Kageyama and Hinata sit just in front of Suga, and Kageyama wordlessly wedges back in the corner of the window and seat so that the tiny spiker can lay out across the seats, head pillowed on a jacket in his setter’s lap. The girls board last, not quite so tired but still looking beat, dropping the gear bags in front of them and sitting back with uncharacteristic gracelessness in the row across from Ukai.
Everyone is passed out within the first ten minutes of the drive, the acoustic cushion of the rain and the warmth in the bus an irresistible combination.
For the first time in months, Takeda hears Ukai Keishin let out a breath of calm relief.
The drive is utterly peaceful, and eventually, an hour in, the boys begin to stir and shift in the rearview mirror like they always do. After all, no matter how much people try, sleeping on a bus is never comfortable.
Sure enough, Yamaguchi groans a little as he rubs at what must be a hell of a kink in his neck, takes his jacket up to pillow it between him and the window. Tsukishima mutters something to him that elicits a quiet snicker before readjusting his glasses and pulling out a manga of some kind. Daichi stops snoring minutes later, but keeps his eyes closed until Suga leans out over the aisle to punch him in the shoulder, and then the two begin talking in low tones, quiet laughter and snippets of nostalgic play-by-play narration of the final game occasionally drifting up over the sound of the rain. Ennoshita-and-crew are doing something similar toward the front. Nishinoya, Tanaka, and Asahi would probably keep sleeping if the bus crashed, and the three remain a softly snoring pile in the back. And Kageyama—Kageyama is honest-to-goodness playing mindlessly with the coppery hair of a sleeping Hinata, and Takeda thinks Hinata Shoyou must be utterly clueless not to notice how smitten that poor boy is. Then again, Kageyama Tobio isn’t exactly a paragon of self-expression.
“So that’s why.”
Takeda glances briefly to the side; Yachi is awake and gesturing to Kageyama, Shimizu following her line of sight.
“Why what?” The older girl asks groggily.
“Why Kageyama-kun always knows where Hinata-kun is going. He just never looks away.”
Shimizu laughs lightly. “Yeah, that’s why.”
Yachi giggles a little, and Takeda can’t help the quiet laugh that escapes him either. Both girls immediately snap their heads to the front of the bus, expressions somewhere between shock, embarrassment, and dawning delight.
“What?” Takeda asks, catching their eyes in the rearview mirror. “These sports types might be oblivious, but teachers know everything.”
***
Hinata wakes to muffled thunder, faint jostling, and Kageyama’s hands in his hair. As soon as he stirs, the setter’s hands cease their movements, and Hinata looks up to find Kageyama staring down, his eyebrow raised.
“You still drool when you sleep.” Kageyama’s voice is gravelly; he must have only just woken up himself.
And Kageyama’s lucky Hinata’s still sleepy and his muscles are stiff as hell, because all Hinata can do is glare vaguely and slur no-I-don’t while he wipes at his mouth before shifting a little, trying to find a more comfortable position. He frowns back up at his setter.
“Legs’re too bony,” he mutters.
Kageyama’s hands tighten in his hair—Kageyama’s hands are still in his hair—and the taller boy hisses, “My legs are perfectly fine, dipshit.”
Said legs tense under Hinata’s head a little. They are not, in fact, too bony; much the opposite, but Hinata has had very good practice not acknowledging the perfectly-fine-ness of Kageyama’s legs.
Still, though. Kageyama’s hands in his hair, Kageyama’s voice, Kageyama’s thighs all corded up and very close to his face, Kageyama, looking down at him—
Stopitstopitstopitstopitstopitnope.
But Hinata is half-asleep, still high on victory—typically not a state in which he has banner moments for restraint or self-control.
So maybe that’s why he finds himself staring up at his moron of a setter and mumbling, “Y’stopped.”
“Mmm?”
Hinata drags one hand up to make a floppy gesture toward his own hair. “Felt good.”
Kageyama looks… lost for words. Somewhere, in the back of his head, the thought flickers that Hinata has probably just crossed a line, but it’s muffled by the steady rain and the grumble of thunder, by his own sleepiness and by the way Kageyama’s eyes soften just a fraction before the taller boy cautiously runs the fingers of his right hand back from Hinata’s hairline, fingernails filed too short to catch at his scalp (Kageyama files his nails nearly to the quick when he’s nervous before a game). When Hinata sighs a little deliberately and closes his eyes, Kageyama goes back to playing with his hair, just kind of twirling the strands about his fingers.
Kageyama has good hands, setter’s hands, lanky and deft and perfectly controlled, the kind where people ask him all the time if he plays piano. They feel nice in his hair.
(Kageyama can play piano, a little bit, took lessons as a kid, Hinata overheard him say once. Hinata has never watched him do so.)
(…He wants to watch Kageyama play piano with an intensity that is frankly out-of-proportion.)
Yes, he really must not have his full mental faculties because he finds himself murmuring upward, “G’job today.”
Kageyama is silent for a long moment, and Hinata cracks his eyes open.
Then there is a curtain of crow-feather hair falling toward his face, and those dark blue eyes are very deep and very close and closing softly perpendicular to Hinata’s, and a pair of slightly chapped lips brushes Hinata’s temple, hardly a kiss, the setter’s body hunching awkwardly to make it so.
Kageyama pulls back a bit, still tipped down to look at Hinata. Hinata just lets a bit of a smile show through his eyes, soft, so as not to damage the sharp, lucent thing that hovers between them, which feels oddly fragile. It’s the fraction of a moment after a spike leaves his hand before he knows whether it’s been blocked, the way everyone in the world holds their breath when someone tosses up for the first serve, the silence between the ball hitting the ground and the final point called.
But as delicate as it is, it does not shatter. And for once, neither of them dare to break that silence. Kageyama’s face softens further before he breaks eye contact to lean back, and he keeps stroking Hinata’s hair with one hand, but he rests the other hand on Hinata’s chest.
The rain falls harder outside the bus, steady, counterpoint and contributor to the warmth within. The thunder is the bass line of a song that feels like it’s been sung forever.
The light is dim, the colors are muted, and Hinata Shoyou is at peace.