Chapter Text
Hinata couldn’t believe his ears. It was almost midnight when he got out of the shower. It had been one of the worst fights he’d had since getting into competitive boxing. His ribs hurt and he could feel his swollen face, but that wasn’t the worst part of the night. Neither was getting chewed out by his coach, nor was hearing the snickers from his sparring partner. No, the worst part was it was midnight and the new person above him had been jumping around for the better half of an hour. He tried, for as long as he could, to ignore it, but after tossing and turning in his bed, scrolling through his phone, unable to sleep he couldn’t take it anymore. It was almost 2 am as he made his way up the stairs.
This is ridiculous, he thought grumpily, wincing as he turned to open the door out of the stairwell, What could someone possibly be jumping around for 2 hours for?
He could hear the soft piano drift into the hallway as he stomped to the door right above his.
Knocking on the door and stepping back, he started to guess what he should expect.
The door swung open, Definitely wasn’t expecting someone this hot.
“Uhm,” his mind went blank at the sight before him.
A tall, raven-haired man stood in the door, scowling down at the interruption. His chest glistened with sweat, and droplets hung precariously from his jaw, his black hair sticking to the sides of his face.
“Hello?” He huffed, clearly not expecting any visitors at this time.
Hinata’s eyes immediately dropped to his feet, and then quickly met his, his anger returning in full force.
“What the hell could you possibly be doing to create this much noise at 2 am?”
“Oh,” the taller looked down, “I was practicing,”
“Well,” Hinata, still hot with anger, “maybe if you landed your jumps softer, you wouldn't need to practice so much.” It wasn’t until he was in the stairwell when he suddenly felt bad. He’d noticed the black ballet shoes that covered the other man’s feet and the melodic piano and he instantly knew what was going on. His face flushed with shame at the rude criticism of his jumps, especially because he hadn’t even seen them. He turned, ignoring the pain in his side and trudged back up the stairs.
When he knocked again, the door opened much quicker.
The other man’s eyes widened, clearly not expecting to see the red head again.
“I’m sorry, that was rude,” Hinata forced out, “I’m Hinata Shoyo, I live downstairs,” He looked sheepishly at his neighbor.
“Kageyama Tobio,” he responded stiffly before the frown settled back on his face. He looked down at Shoyo, waiting for him to say something else.
Hinata just nodded awkwardly, “Um, anyways yeah, can you practice earlier? It’s quite loud.”
“Maybe, if I feel like it,”
Hinata frowned, he’d asked nicely? Why was he being difficult?
“Seriously? It’s not that hard to practice earlier in the day,” he didn’t understand the refusal, “Or at least for not as long.”
“Is that all?”
What is this guy's problem?
“I guess,” he had a feeling he’d be making this trip again, probably at a similar time.
He walked back to his apartment lost in thought, still confused. He was hot, but damn was he an ass.
When he entered his own apartment, he waited, straining his ears for the thuds that previously filled his living room. He was met with silence and let out a long sigh as exhaustion set deep in his bones.
*
When Kageyama was interrupted by an insistent knocking at the door, he hadn’t expected to open the door to a furious short red-head.
Cute, was all he thought as the shorter man stared at him with wide eyes, red slowly creeping up his neck.
“Hello?” Kageyama was also starting to blush under the scrutiny of the man. He was clearly in his pajamas, his shirt huge, leaving his collarbones to peak out the collar, and plaid pajama pants. When he started yelling at Kageyama, he felt a wave of guilt at keeping his neighbor up, but he kept his composure.
“Well, maybe if you landed your jumps softer, you wouldn't need to practice so much.”
What?! Who was this man to judge whether or not his jumping was good? And how’d he know I was doing an allegro?
When he knocked the second time, Kageyama opened the door, fully expecting to be yelled at again. He studied the ginger, eyes downcast in shame. Something in Kageyama’s stomach turned, and he wanted to see the anger in his neighbors eyes again. He wanted to press his buttons, clearly he was quick to emotions since no one else came to complain about his noise levels.
He closed the door behind him, rolling his name around his tongue before starting to clean up his makeshift studio.
Hinata Shoyo.
He pulled off his ballet slippers and began to stretch. The more Tobio thought about him, the more his neighbor confused him. He assumed he’d figured out he was a ballet dancer, and he must know something about dancing or he wouldn’t have made that comment about his landings. But was it that obvious he was having trouble with them? No, he was just being loud, he shook away the thought and finished cleaning.
The next morning came sooner than he wanted, and Kageyama rolled out of bed at 7 am. It was, arguably, his least favorite thing about ballet. He was not a morning person, and that was not a secret. He got ready for a full day at the studio. When he was walking down the stairs, he was shocked to pass the familiar orange tuft walking up the stairs. They both stopped and stared for a brief moment, and Kageyama didn’t miss the dark circles under his eyes. Hinata started walking up the stairs, limping slightly. Kageyama continued, taking the train to his studio, walking in right in time.
“Wow, you’re almost late. King?” Tsukishima snickered from his place at the barre, and Yamaguchi smiled behind his hand, clearly instigating.
“Shut up,” the nickname making his neck prickle with annoyance.
He put his stuff down and joined the space opposite them on the same barre. He didn’t understand why the instructor liked to control where they stood at the barre, but he, unfortunately, was next to two of the rudest first-soloist dancers in the company, well, Yamaguchi was okay, but his partner in crime was just the worst. Alas here he was. And he had formed some resemblance of friendship with them.
They stretched in silence as more dancers filed into the company class. Class started soon after, and Kageyama was glad for the distraction from his thoughts, which had been filled with a certain orange-haired neighbor, since he’d run into him at 7:30 in the morning.
*
Getting exactly 2 hours and 6 minutes of sleep was not enough for Shoyo. And his sparring partner took advantage of this fact. When his alarm went off at 4:30 that morning, he could only snooze it twice before dragging himself out of bed. He was lucky his gym was just down the street, letting him run there, barely making it on time for his 5 am time slot.
“Cutting it kind of close don’t you think?” Bokuto turned to him, his white streaked hair standing straight up.
“Yeah Hinata, you’re usually here early?”
“Hey Bokuto, hey Kuroo,” he sighed out, his head already starting to pound from the early morning, “my neighbor would not shut up last night,”
The two shared a look causing Shoyo to roll his eyes, “I mean from his apartment, he was jumping around,”
“Whatever Sho, you could use some action,”
“I’m giving you 3 seconds to take that back,” Hinata threatened. It was hollow, of course, but Hinata didn’t need a reminder of his nonexistent love life.
Kuroo just laughed, “Come on, let’s start,”
Since Hinata had a fight the night before, he was there mainly to just loosen up and work out the lactic acid. This meant a lot of stretching and a lot of watching Bokuto and Kuroo spar. He sat with his legs wide, almost in the middle split, leaning on his elbows distractedly scrolling through instagram. Not much had changed in the hours since 2 am.
“Did you figure out what happened last night?” He hadn’t noticed their trainer walk up until he started talking.
“Hey Ukai,” he chewed on his lower lip, “yeah I think I know the problem,” he nodded to his trainer and the other boxer as he walked up.
Ukai turned to the other boxer, “Akaashi, go in there and give Bokuto a break.”
He gave Hinata a look over, “You’re taking care of your injuries?”
“Yeah, they’re just bruises,” already tired of this conversation. He hated losing, and he hated the injuries that came with it. He’d done a thorough analysis of his body last night in the shower, when the sting of the fight was still fresh. This seemed to satisfy his coach, Ukai just nodded and walked towards the ring to continue to give instruction to the other two boxers.
“How are you so flexible?” Bokuto joined him on the floor in mock disgust. Hinata just laughed and rolled his eyes at the running joke in the gym, “You wanna go?”
Hinata nodded furiously, he hated sitting still. He quickly pulled the gloves over his wrapped hands and began to spar lightly with his partner, but his feet were sluggish and his body ached. He let out a frustrated huff after 15 minutes of his body not responding, and the two gave it a rest.
“Here,” Bokuto handed Shoyo a small bag of ice, “for your knee, I saw you limping a little,”
Hinata took the ice, gingerly placing it against his leg, not even noticing at this point when he was favoring his other side. Thankfully his team noticed.
When morning training had ended, Hinata could have cried. He was hoping to get a few hours of sleep before going back for work. He walked up the stairs, eyes trained on the steps in front of him. When he almost bumped into someone, he looked up, face to face with the blue eyes from last night. They stared at each other for a beat before Hinata’s feet continued up the steps.
Wonder where he’s going so early, probably work, he thought about his neighbor until his head hit the pillow, where all thoughts but sleep left him.