Work Text:
Yachi can be a bit of an airhead sometimes, and she forgets about pretty much everything; except bringing tissues along with her when it's cold outside or when she's out to watch a potentially sad movie.
Today being the latter, she mentally pats her own back with satisfaction as she quietly grabs yet another tissue from her purse, discretely blowing her nose and wiping off her tears for what is possibly the tenth time in the last five minutes.
It wasn't even her idea to watch that movie; she was supposed to come here with her friend Hinata, who really wanted to see that romantic-cheesy-dramatic movie that was out this weekend, and Yachi being the wonderful friend that she is had agreed, thinking that it couldn't possibly be that bad. and, besides, it had been a while since she and Hinata had been hanging out, so she didn't really think it twice.
But Hinata had called her ten minutes before the movie, telling her that his parents had asked him to babysit his younger sister Natsu and even after twenty minutes of heated debate with them, they didn't agree to call for someone else to take care of the little girl, so Hinata was stuck at home, and Yachi was stuck at the theatre, having already purchased her ticket.
Well then.
Since she didn't have anything else to do and had already paid for the damn thing she'd decided to stay and watch the movie anyway, Hinata or not.
To be honest, Yachi was kind of glad that Hinata was not there. Not that he had never seen her cry, but this was a whole new level of crying and hiccupping and Yachi felt a little pathetic. Usually, she would be too busy laughing at Hinata, who would be crying like a baby, to cry so much herself or even pay attention to the film. But with Hinata being absent and all, she had no choice but to actually watch the movie and had unfortunately gotten really into it. It was the kind of bittersweet story that would often get to her no matter how cliché it was, and she was still not over the protagonist making the boy wait for her for hours and never show up at the exact same spot he'd confessed to her a few months prior and—
"Huh, excuse me?"
Yachi screeches, startled, and looks up at the source of the voice: a boy, roughly her age, very tall and apparently very uncomfortable, standing awkwardly at the end of the row two seats away from hers, holding a mop in one of his hands and a bottle of vaporizing disinfectant in the other.
"Sorry, sorry!" Yachi quickly apologizes, fumbling to retrieve the tissues around her. She suddenly stops in motion, noticing just now that something's odd, and it's then that she realizes that the lights are on, the movie is clearly over, and she's the only one left in the room, a few bits of popcorn on her lap and tissues all around her on the floor.
"Ah, sorry, I didn't notice that the movie was over," she adds, embarrassed, feeling heat creeping up on her cheeks— although they were probably already red enough with all the crying as it is.
"It's alright," the boy shrugs, and he still looks a little annoyed, or maybe it's just the shape of his eyebrows that gives him this constant "don't look at me, you're irritating" vibe.
Yachi sniffles and wipes her eyes one last time and brushes the popcorn from her lap to the floor, but then she realizes that the cleaning boy is right beside her and that he will probably mad that she's giving him even more work to do, so she starts picking up the popcorn from the ground.
"It's okay, you don't have to," the boy says.
"No, no, i'll do it, i just—" Yachi mumbles, forming a little pile with the popcorn and proceeding to retrieve the colony of tissues around her.
"Huh, are you—" the boy starts and Yachi looks up at him, mildly confused and highly embarrassed, because why is he still talking to me and i just want to leave already can't he just swipe the floor and pretend i'm not there and—
"Are you okay?" the boy finally manages out, rather softly this time, and Yachi blinks once, twice, three times until she realizes there are still tears falling down her cheeks.
"Oh. oh, that," she laughs nervously, quickly wiping the tears off her cheeks, "yeah sure, it's nothing it's just, the movie…" she trails off, words catching in her throat, unable to finish her sentence because thinking about that movie is too painful for now and she can't afford to cry in front of an angry (cute?) looking boy who probably just wants her to leave already so he can finish his job. she chokes back a sob with a strangled noise.
"Ah!" the boy suddenly yelps, "no, n-n-no it's okay… I understand, but d-d-don't cry!" he blurts out, visibly embarrassed.
"Sorry, sorry," Yachi quickly replies, panic filling her voice. that was a rather unexpected turn of event.
"No, no it's okay, it's okay!" the boy adds, shaking his hands in what was probably meant to be a reassuring gesture, except that he's holding a bottle of disinfectant and a mop so the effect is rather comic instead. Yachi chuckles a little at that, and the boy seems to suddenly realize what he's doing and stops, pouting slightly. Yachi looks at him and smiles, tears having stopped falling for a while now, and the boy looks embarrassed, flustered even, and Yachi must have been staring at him for more than the few seconds she thought it lasted cause the boy is blushing now and he quickly averts his gaze in what he probably thinks is an effective attempt to hide his reddening cheeks. Except it's not, and Yachi feels her smile widening in spite of herself.
The boy clears his throat, rests the mop against a seat and puts his bottle on the floor before reaching out for something in his pocket.
"Here," the boy says after a while, outstretching his hands, still not looking at Yachi.
She thanks him and takes the bag the boy is giving her, albeit unsure, wondering why he would give her anything in the first place. They'd only met like what, five minutes prior? She looks into it anyways and furrows her eyebrows once she notices that there's nothing inside. Seeing her confusion, cleaning-boy points at the pile of tissues on her lap and suddenly Yachi understands that the bag was not a gift, but a thing to put her tissues in.
Embarrassed, she quickly and hastily throws the tissues in the bag, trying her best to hide her embarrassment. Why are you so stupid she mumbles to herself. She must have been loud enough to be heard, though, because there's a low snorting sound on her left where the boy is. She stands up to leave and faces him, a frown on her face, ready to make a badass exit without finishing cleaning, just like they do in the movies. She's ready to see a mocking expression on the boy's face but instead, she's met with something much more closer to a smile, and the boy doesn't seem so annoyed anymore; in fact Yachi doesn't even remember how she could even think of him as angry or annoyed in the beginning when the look in his eyes is so genuine, and as her own features soften she starts to wonder if she even wants to leave anymore.
"I—" they both say before quickly apologizing in unison, cheeks blushing. They both start chuckling lightly and Yachi is well aware that this is the most cliché thing that has happened to her in the last sixteen years and yet she doesn't even bother, thinking that no matter how many times she's seen this kind of scenes on the big screen, this moment right now is probably her favourite.
Crap, even her thoughts are cliché.
"I, huh—"
"Tobio-chan~" a voice startles them, making the boy stop himself mid-sentence and become incredibly tense. Yachi freezes in spot, not too sure about what she should do. A tall male with brown hair comes inside the room and walks towards the boy, almost skipping. "We need to have a talk about your shift next week—" the male stops when he sees Yachi and a sly smile tugs at his lips.
"Tobio-chan," tall guy says once more, still staring at yachi, offering her a smile that has her breath catch in her throat. "I didn't think I'd had to remind this to you of all people here, but you know that flirting is not allowed when you're on duty." He turns to face the boy —Tobio, apparently— this time, whose face is now red with what seems to be actual annoyance now. Yachi wants to protest, but Tobio (what a cute name, Yachi cannot help but think in the very back of her brain) is faster than her.
"Say that to yourse—" he starts, but the other male raises his hand, silencing him.
"Tch, Tobio-chan, watch your words. You wouldn't want me to report your extremely inconsiderate behavior towards your superior to the boss, right?" he adds, voice mellow and eyes crinkling.
Tobio only stares back at the older male, visibly fuming, and Yachi is suddenly very aware that she has absolutely nothing to do here and the longer she stays, the more she'll aggravate the whole situation.
"Huh, I'll just…. go, then, hmm. Sorry for the trouble," she mutters to Tobio and bows, then quickly walks out of the room. As she walks (nearly runs) her way out, she thinks she hears tobio saying anytime but it was probably just the after-effect of watching an extremely cheesy romance movie and her brain was probably just making this up. Probably.
A short while after she's come home Hinata calls her, asking her about the movie, and she pointedly doesn’t mention the fact that she cried her eyes out, that she'd stayed by herself in the room long after the movie was over and that she'd had her 15 minutes out of a shoujo manga.
***
The next day Yachi was ready to forget about all of this: her life wasn't a sappy romantic drama, nor was it a shoujo manga or an anime or whatever fictional adventure. It was real life, and she would probably never meet that boy again. He probably didn't even care about her anyway.
But then she receives a text from hinata.
From: Hinata Shouyou
To: Yachi Hitoka
Bro, why did you not tell me you met a dude at the movies yesterday? I thought we were friends!!!!
Yachi squeaks. How would he even know about this? She'd been extremely careful not to even hint about it, why and how would he know? Last time she checked, Hinata wasn't psychic— and quite frankly, he could never be, if you’d ask Yachi.
But that doesn't explain why hinata knows about the… thing, that happened yesterday.
She barely manages to type a reply, her heart pounding and her fingers slightly shaking.
From: Yachi Hitoka
To: Hinata Shouyou
how did you know??6??????
She stares at her screen for a few seconds, waiting for a reply. She almost drops her phone when it starts ringing. She catches it just in time before it falls on the floor. Breathing in and out two times to calm herself down, she presses the reply button and puts the phone to her ear.
"Yo. why're you callin'?" she tries to sound calm and perfectly in control, the complete opposite of what she actually feels like right now, but Hinata doesn't seem to catch the bait at all.
"So it is true then," Hinata says, blatantly ignoring Yachi's attempt at being cool and going straight to the point.
"Wait, i never said tha— why does it even matter?"
"Well, it turns out i have Kageyama with me right now and we were just trying to confirm if you're actually the girl he met yesterday," Hinata casually speaks, like this is the most normal thing in the world, a totally, completely, utterly normal conversation.
"Kageyama?" Yachi asks, not remembering meeting any kageyama, and her heartbeat slows down a little. Good, this is a mistake, we can all pretend this didn't happen and forget everyth—
"Kageyama. Tobio-chan," Hinata precises, and Yachi squeaks.
"Oi, don't call me that, dumbass!" she hears through the phone and oh no this is definitely the boy's voice oh no what is going on oh no oh no—
"Hey, that hurts, don't hit me when i'm on the phone, I can't defend myself!" Hinata shouts.
"If you weren't being such a dumbass I wouldn't have to hit you."
"Oh my god," Yachi mumbles, because that's pretty much all she can muster right now.
Oh my god.
"Okay, so I take it that it's really you he met yesterday then," Hinata says. "Okay, that's all I wanted to know. I gotta go now, practice's about to start!"
"Wait," yachi demands, rubbing her face warily. "What is going on, how did you even know about last night, why can't you go through things in order?"
"Oh, yeah, that," Hinata says, visibly realizing only just now that this would have been a good thing to start the conversation with. "Well, long story short, the guy who works with Kageyama and surprised you two yesterday told everyone at the theater about Kageyama flirting during work — aow, that hurts, dumbass!— during work hours, and turns out a few guys from the volleyball team work with them and they were talking about that, you know, before practice at the club room. And then everyone asked for details, right, and he said that he was just going to clean and that this cute girl was sitting by herself in the backrow with tissues and popcorn all over herself way after the movie was over, and i thought that sounded like you to not realize the movie was over because you were so caught up in it, so—"
"Cu…te..." Yachi mumbles to herself, grateful that Hinata cannot see her through the phone because she is most definitely blushing right now.
"—obviously iIasked him if it was you, but he didn't know your name, although he really seems to like it seeing how he blush— stop hitting me, God, Kageyama, I'm having a conversation here," Hinata yells in the opposite direction of the phone, thank God, so Yachi only faintly hears him yell. "Ugh, Bakageyama… so, what was i saying? Ah, yeah, I showed him a picture and he — wow no okay I wasn't gonna say anything, stop hitting me!— he just said it was you, so I called you to confirm and here we are, but I really need to practice now, I'll call you later!"
And with that Hinata hangs up, leaving Yachi to process everything on her own.
Now that is the weirdest thing that has happened to her in a very long time, and she's got her fair share of weird stuff happening, Hinata being her friend and all, since nothing is ever completely normal with him and his overenergetic personality.
This didn't just happen Yachi tells herself, shaking her head as if it would make the weird memories — dream, she corrects herself— wither away in the depth of nothingness.
She puts her phone on her bedside table and slaps her face twice in an attempt to bring herself back to her senses. A little homework would do just that, she thinks, so she opens her textbooks and sits at her desk.
She's well into a math problem a while later when the sound of a text notification startles her. She frowns when she sees that it's only Hinata, who has texted her a series of numbers.
From: Yachi Hitoka
To: Hinata Shouyou
is this gonna make me win the lottery? better be it.
From: Hinata Shouyou
To: Yachi Hitoka
not really but i guess it is a lucky number for you. kageyama was too shy to text you so here you go. you can thank me later. although i really don't get what you see in that fart. but whatever.
Yachi reads and rereads the text two, three, ten times, her heartbeat quickening a bit more each time. This was ridiculous, this couldn't be happening, and she couldn't believe this at all.
She spends the rest of her day trying to forget about it one second and the next she catches herself wondering if she should really add his number to her contact list.
She gives up on her homework after two hours of staring at the same page and decides a shower would be the best option right now to calm her nerves.
After a good half an hour under warm water and having brushed her teeth, she goes back to her bedroom, somewhat calmer. She lays on her bed and contemplates on whether or not she should text Kageyama right now. It's not ten yet, so she doubts he'd be sleeping. She opens a text window, types the first two characters of the word "hello" but quickly erases them and sets her phone beside her, sighing.
A part of her still think that all of this is too ridiculous to be happening. it's probably just a joke, or a dream, even, and she's going to wake up tomorrow and everything will be only a faint, distant memory.
Yeah, definitely.
She laughs quietly and puts her phone on her bedside table. Can't believe i almost got fooled, she tells herself before turning the lights off.
She's almost asleep when her phone buzzes. She rubs her eyes sleepily and stretches her arm to grab her phone without looking, almost shoving it off the table. She shrieks at the brightness of her screen but opens the text anyways, and this time she almost willingly throws the phone on the floor.
From: 52439262
To: Yachi Hitoka
Hinata is a big liar, I can't believe you’re friends with him. i wasn't too shy, my phone just didn't have battery… it's kageyama, if you didn't know… so, goodnight? let's talk again sometime soon.