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Sometimes her brother was a mystery to Miwa.
She has always thought of him as a simple person, which his grades usually confirmed. The only thing on his mind was volleyball. Grandpa Kazuyo made sure of that. Or maybe it was her when she indirectly forced him to accompany her to practice. After all, she started volleyball first.
Either way, she could always count on him spending his free time practicing or dying over schoolwork. So when she heard him talking to someone inside his room she was dumbfounded. Miwa was walking past his room to get to her own one after making herself a smoothie. The smoothie nearly dropped to the floor when she heard him yelling aggravatedly.
The door to his room was closed, so Miwa couldn’t make out what exactly he was talking about but she did gather that he was fighting with someone. And because her brother would never invite someone over, it had to be over the phone.
Miwa’s flaw was her curiosity. She was just too noisy for her own good. As soon as someone acted even a tiny bit secretive, she made it her mission to find out what was going on. With Tobio it wasn’t any different. No one at school was safe from her gossip and no one at home would be safe too. Tobio stepping out of his usual habits was very weird and Miwa decided to investigate.
Careful to be as silent as possible, she stepped closer and pressed an ear to the door. The straw from the smoothie automatically found its way to her mouth and she drank from the disgusting thing. Her friend told her it was great to lose some weight and of course Miwa had to try it out. So far she didn’t recommend it.
Tobio on the other side of the door was still yelling but even with one ear on the door, Miwa couldn’t make out what exactly he was yelling about. Or whom he was yelling at. The only words she could hear were ‘dumbass’, ‘idiot’ and ‘shut up’ which didn’t really tell her a lot other than her brother desperately needing to invest into finding some new curse words.
She was ready to give up for the day when the yelling stopped. Miwa frowned. Did Tobio hang up? But no. There was still mumbling. If possible, she moved even closer to the door to find out what exactly was happening. She was unsuccessful. Stepping back again, she sighed disappointed and took another slurp from her smoothie.
The sound it made was quite loud and Miwa froze. Behind the door was silence. Then something rumbled and seconds later the door flew open. Her brother appeared under the door frame and stopped in his tracks when he saw who was standing around in front of his room.
“What are you doing here?” he asked skeptically.
Miwa was glad that she was the one who inherited the brain cells of the family and shook her smoothie in front of Tobio’s face. “Got myself a smoothie. I’m just walking back to my room. By the way, who were you talking to just now?”
A hue of color showed on Tobio’s face. Now this was interesting. Was he talking to a girl? But a normal person wouldn’t insult their love interest over the phone like that. On the other hand, Tobio wasn’t exactly the brightest. Let alone someone you could classify as normal.
“Just Hinata.”
At least Miwa could count on Tobio saying the truth. He never lied. Which got Miwa into trouble more than once before. Like that one time she sneaked out to meet with friends and Tobio saw her. When their parents found out that she was missing, it was her brother who ratted her out. Not because he wanted to be mean to her but because he just always told the truth when he was asked something.
“And who’s Hinata?”
Tobio’s cheeks blushed even more and he walked past her towards the kitchen. “Someone from school.”
And with that, Tobio was gone and Miwa was left without further information on her case. Reluctantly, she returned to her room. To sum up, this was what she knew so far:
- Tobio was actively talking to someone (even on the phone)
- The person was called Hinata
- Hinata goes to Karasuno too
- Hinata might be Tobio’s crush judging by how he blushed when Miwa mentioned her
Miwa had a lot to do for school so some weeks passed before she could continue her investigations. She picked them up again when she saw Tobio smiling over something he read on his phone while they were eating dinner together. Because Miwa was clearly a menace to society, she decided to use the situation to her advantage.
“What are you smiling about?”
The whole table glanced up and after seeing what she was looking at, focused on Tobio and the phone in his hands. Her brother immediately flinched and put his phone away. Very suspicious.
“It’s called getting a funny message.”
“I’m familiar with the concept. I just don’t get why you would receive something like that. You don’t really have friends.”
Tobio glared at her. “I have friends.”
Miwa raised her eyebrows. Not that she wasn’t happy for her brother, he deserved friends. It was just hard to believe. “The volleyball club doesn’t count.”
Shaking his head, Tobio defended himself. “Hinata counts.”
They would have argued further if not for their mother stopping them. In her room, Miwa thought about the new information she just gathered from their little discussion.
- Hinata and Tobio were texting
- Hinata could make Tobio laugh
- Hinata was probably part of the volleyball club
It was getting increasingly obvious that this Hinata person was someone important to Tobio. Miwa couldn’t shake the suspicion that Hinata was his girlfriend. Or someone who Tobio wanted to be his girlfriend. Going over her different pieces of evidence, Miwa wondered if she should ask him outright. If she asked directly, Tobio would either answer with the truth or find a way to escape the conversation. Miwa liked solving mysteries (crime was her favorite genre) so she ended up deciding that she wouldn’t ask. She had faith in herself to find out the truth by herself.
Gossip is an artform. There is bad gossip and good gossip. Quality made all the difference. A way to make high quality gossip is to support it with evidence which is collected by observing your prey.
Hence Miwa standing in the stands of a high school volleyball game.
She let her eyes wander over the court. If she was honest with herself, she had to admit that it wasn’t solely the fact that she wanted to find out who Tobio was talking to that made her come here. It was a mixture of different reasons. Against all odds, she liked her brother and wanted him to be happy. It seemed like he was happy here at Karasuno and Miwa wanted to see who the people enriching her brother’s life were. And there was also the egotistical reason of wanting to experience a volleyball game again, even if it was from the stands.
While Karasuno's rivals were already on the court warming up, the Karasuno volleyball team wasn’t there yet. Miwa took out her phone and made a few selfies for her friends. They didn’t want to accompany her because, apparently, they had better things to do. Too bad that Miwa would torture them with live updates of the whole match over the group chat.
Just then, she could hear noises and looked up to see the Karasuno team walking onto the court. Miwa’s eyes found her brother instantly and she had to smile. It was true that he looked the happiest when he could play volleyball.
Remembering her mission, she scanned the court for the team manager. She found two of them, sitting on the bench. There was a very cute blonde girl and a very beautiful black-haired girl. Both of them were crush-worthy in her humble opinion. Miwa’s eyes narrowed as she thought which one of them could be Tobio’s crush. Her bet was on the blonde one.
The match was amazing. The way Tobio worked together with the other players which he never did in middle school. They really did seem like more than just random people playing together. They seemed to be friends. Especially Tobio and that one spiker. The ginger one. Miwa was transfixed on him. The ginger was short but made up for it by his jumps. It was very impressive and Miwa totally forgot to take enough photos for her friends.
Then it happened. It was fast. Very fast. But Tobio was able to set the short spiker and he slammed the volleyball down like it was nothing.
“And here we have it! The famous quick attack from Karasuno players Kageyama Tobio and Hinata Shoyo!” the commentator yelled in bliss.
At first Miwa didn’t realize. Then time stopped. Hinata. She blinked and tried to process. The commentator definitely called the spiker Hinata, there was no doubt about it. Stunned by this revelation Miwa focused her sight on her brother. Tobio was smiling at Hinata like he was the world while they high fived. His face sported a blush but whether that was from interacting with Hinata or playing volleyball couldn’t be said.
Miwa blinked.
Apparently, her brother was gay.
At home Miwa let herself fall onto her bed. If she was really correct with her assumption, Tobio had a crush on his fellow teammate. She just hoped that this Hinata wasn’t homophobic. Or anyone else on the team. If Tobio ever decides to confess, Miwa really didn't want him to lose all his friends.
Over the course of the next few weeks Miwa found countless incidents that supported her hypotheses that Tobio had a crush on Hinata. It was almost too easy to find them now that she knew what she was looking for.
Sometimes it was Tobio staring holes in the air with a big smile on his face at the most random of times. Other times he kept raving about Hinata and what they did after practice. Volleyball and Hinata became interchangeable. Miwa even found notes about Hinata in Tobio’s notebook when she decided to snoop around in his room. Mostly about something on how Hinata could be better at volleyball but also just random stuff like which meat buns he liked the most. One time she even caught a glimpse of some pictures of the two together on Tobio’s phone when she was walking past him in the living room.
The most suspicious of things was something else though. Whenever Miwa watched romance movies and Tobio had some free time, he decided to join her. And contrary to that one time where she had to explain to him what ‘oblivious idiots in love’ are, he now seemed to get the movies. Like he could relate.
It was bizarre.
It was friday and Miwa was tired from the long school day. Done with the world, she turned the key in the door lock and walked into her home. She called out that she was back, not expecting anyone to answer. Imagine her shock when an unknown voice replied with a cheerful “Welcome home!”.
Rubbing her arm because she slapped it against the wall in shock, Miwa stepped further into the house and found the owner of the voice on their couch. On the TV in the background some volleyball match was playing. The boy had orange hair and looked suspiciously familiar.
“Hinata!” Miwa called out, realizing too late that it was kind of creepy to call out his name when she technically didn’t know him. Hastily Miwa looked around to find Tobio but he wasn’t there. Probably on the toilet or something.
Luckily, Hinata didn’t take it the wrong way and just beamed at her. He was cute. Miwa could definitely see why Tobio had a crush on the guy.
“Did Tobio tell you about me?”
Miwa nodded, silently thanking Hinata for the excuse.
If possible Hinata beamed even more. It was like staring directly into sunlight. “Oh, that’s awesome! Didn’t think he would do it.”
“I wouldn’t do what?”
Both turned around to the third voice. Tobio was walking into the living room, observing them suspiciously. Without missing a beat Hinata was ready to answer. “Tell your sister about us.”
Us?
Tobio’s face took on a panicked expression as he quickly turned from looking at Hinata to Miwa. Hinata seemed to notice that he said something he shouldn’t have. Instead of apologizing though, his smile turned into something more mischievous. “You did, right?”
Miwa started to grin as well. When there was a possibility to torment her brother, she always gladly joined. “As a matter of fact, he didn’t. Why don’t you enlighten me?”
Tobio jumped in fear and ran over to Hinata to put a hand over his mouth, trying to prevent him from speaking. With moderate success. Hinata put up one hell of a fight and did everything he could to remove that hand from anywhere near his mouth. For a moment there was only the fighting of the two and Miwa had to snicker. It looked like they fought like this more often than not.
To her luck, Tobio lost. Hinata yelled it out. “We’re together. This idiot is my boyfriend.” Tobio instantly froze and Hinata managed to escape his grasp. Both were panting hard.
Boyfriend. So they were already together. This revelation was something Miwa hadn’t expected. And while Tobio was obviously embarrassed by the whole situation it didn’t seem like he was insecure about the fact. Which meant this was going on for a while already. Miwa narrowed her eyes. Her own detective work has failed her.
“Since when?”
Tobio studied the floor but to Miwa’s luck his boyfriend (boyfriend!) was very talkative. “A few months now."
“MONTHS?” This was unbelievable. Miwa was getting angry. “This is unacceptable!”
Both boys flinched, not expecting this much of a reaction. Hinata took a step closer to Tobio, as if to defend him and Tobio glared at her. “Why? Do you have anything against two men loving each other? It’s not something unnatural!”
“What? No! The only thing unnatural here is that you got a boyfriend before me!”
Tobio blinked and Hinata next to him relaxed. The grin from before slowly appeared on his face again.
“Oh,” was Tobio’s only reaction and Hinata giggled. “That really is a miracle. You clearly got the better looks, Kageyama-san.”
Hinata was getting more likable by the second. “You hear that, Tobio?” Miwa teased her brother.
“He only said that because he wants to get on your good side.” Tobio huffed but side-eyed his boyfriend as if to make sure that his answer was true. Hinata patted his arm to reassure him. “You’re very beautiful too.” Tobio relaxed but still pouted.
Miwa laughed. They were very cute together. “So how did you get together? It’s very hard to picture my dumb brother being able to have moves. I guess you did all the work, right Hinata-kun?”
This time it was Tobio who spoke up. “No, I did!” Hinata next to him blushed but nodded. “Kind of.”
“What? How?” It was hard to imagine. Tobio’s social skills were worse than the neighbor’s dog.
Her brother’s eyes widened and he looked at his boyfriend in shock. Then he quickly looked back to his sister and shook his head. “You don’t need to know the details.” He grabbed Hinata’s arm and tried to pull him to the couch to resume watching the TV.
Unfortunately, both Miwa and Hinata had other ideas. Hinata shook his arm free and smirked. “Oh, I think your sister would find it very interesting how exactly we got together.” Miwa nodded fervently. “I definitely do.”
Tobio just looked Hinata in his eyes and pleaded. “Please?” But Hinata didn’t falter and turned towards Miwa. “It all started when he thought I was talking too much.” Tobio groaned and put his hands in front of his face. “I admit I talk a lot but it’s not that bad.”
Miwa doubted that but didn’t interrupt the story.
“Either way, he was very annoyed by it. Totally unreasonable of course.” Hinata threw a glare towards Tobio and then continued. “Apparently, he tried out different methods to shut me up. One of his glorious ideas was to kiss me to shut me up.”
That sounded awfully familiar. Flashes of a movie night a few months back appeared in Miwa’s mind. But there was simply no way that this could be true.
“In my defence the people in your dumb movie did the same and even you told me it would work! And it did work!” Tobio cried out, removed his hands from his face and clenched his fists.
“You did what? OH MY GOD! Are we talking about ‘Magic Wonderland’?” Miwa thought back. In the movie there was a couple. Both were oblivious as hell and didn’t notice that they were obviously pining for each other. In a fight it escalated and the man yelled ‘Shut up’ and the woman replied with ‘Make me!’. So Tobio probably got his idea from that scene. Miwa facepalmed. Sometimes her brother reached a new high of stupidity. This was one of those times.
Tobio grumbled something illegible and Hinata next to him had a nasty grin on his face. He seemed to enjoy this almost as much as Miwa did. “That’s not even the best part.”
“THERE’S MORE?” Miwa was having the best day of her life. Tobio had the worst day of his life, at least judging by his defeated expression.
“Obviously I thought that this meant that we were finally together.”
“Obviously.” Miwa agreed.
Hinata continued the story. “But then he suddenly stopped kissing me. Naturally, I was confused and asked him about it and he said it was because he missed my talking.” Tobio next to him was very flustered and his cheeks were the color of tomatoes. “And then I asked what he meant by that and he explained the whole thing. How it worked to shut me up when I was talking too much. I kind of understood what he tried to achieve but it still didn't explain if he still liked me, which is why I asked him. Well, turns out he didn’t even know that his behavior meant that he liked me. I had to explain the concept of liking someone to him.”
That’s what did it for Miwa.
She couldn’t hold it any longer. Miwa started to laugh hysterically. While Tobio glared at her, Hinata walked into the kitchen and got her a glass of water. She tried to accept it but kept spilling the water everywhere.
“Come on, it’s not that funny.”
“You were complaining that there wouldn’t be oblivious people in the real world when we watched the movie!” Miwa was able to bring out in between laughs. She had yet to drink a single drop of water and the glass was already empty.
Tobio stomped his feet and turned away. “I was a bit confused.”
Hinata patted his back. “But you got the spirit.”
Miwa erupted in yet another laughing fit.
Nothing much changed after that, other than Hinata regularly showing up at their home to spend time with Tobio. Every time Miwa and Hinata saw each other, they made sure to make at least one remark about oblivious Tobio. Without fail Tobio would get mad and embarrassed. Hinata and Miwa had a blast.
Another thing Miwa started to include in her teasing was the following: Everytime Tobio showed up to watch a romantic movie with Miwa, she made sure to point out whenever the people in it were oblivious and say “That’s you!”. More than once Tobio left again or threw a pillow into her face.