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Day I: Miracle
There wasn’t much to Kageyama Tobio’s life. Like any other average first year in high school he was part of a club—the volleyball club in which he was a setter—and had a selective set of teammates, which he considered friends. That was practically it.
And Hinata Shouyou. There was no way he could miss that part of his life.
Whatever Hinata was to him, he could never out an exact word. Friend? Teammate? Rival? There were so many adjectives that could describe his relationship with Hinata Shouyou that he could not even count them.
Mondays through Fridays after school or practice hours he’d say walking home buddy. Later those nights, or any other night he’d say texting buddy as Hinata, every time without missing a single night, would text him whatever nonsense he could manage to come up with.
Kageyama sometimes wondered how Hinata had such a vast imagination.
Hinata also was a fellow schoolmate, as they crossed paths in the shoes lockers or the school hallways. As always, Hinata would give him a bright, sunshine like smile and greet him with enthusiasm. On rare occasions he would look down (or in his case up due to his height) at Kageyama with a fake menace which looked much more comical than serious, and remind him that they were eternal rivals before rushing to his classroom.
It was embarrassing, yet rather comforting for the raven.
Later in practice he would be many things. His rival, his partner, his teammate…
But overall what Kageyama felt Hinata to be was someone special in his life. Someone he couldn’t help but feel was more than just a friend.
He just couldn’t tell what that meant.
However, none of this had ever occurred to the raven. Kageyama hadn’t seen Hinata’s value right away. He’d been rude; he wouldn’t accept the child like first year right away. He felt him to be weak.
And even after acknowledging him, realizing his strength and value, he did not take note of any of this
Until then.
Besides, he had other things that were clouding his reasoning lately.
“Oi, oi!! Look at Chibi-chan over here!”
In a beat Hinata Shouyou was surrounded. Three unknown faces, surely much older than he was. They’d been lingering around him for a while now, but Hinata hadn’t expected them to actually come up and surround him.
This wasn’t good.
He was panicking.
“Hey, what’s your name?” one of the three boys asked, much too close to the boy for it to be a friendly greeting.
“Screw his name, give us your money, kid!” The one next to him scoffed, lunging forth and taking a rough grip of Hinata’s collar.
Hinata yelped, his bag falling to the floor, his heart up to his throat.
“Oi, be careful with Chibi-kun, he seems fragile,” another mocked, looming besides the other two.
“Ahh, my bad,” the one holding Hinata up laughed and abruptly let him go. The redhead dropped to the ground so sudden, he nearly fell back it were not for his balance, He managed to land with one knee on the ground, both hands besides him. Surely his knee would be scraped and bloodied later, but he couldn’t worry himself about that now. He was panicked; scared. He had no idea how to react to this. His hands were shaking, his mind was racing, and he was probably going to lose the money his mother had given him to run to the convenience store.
Suddenly one of the boys pushed his foot down on his head to prevent Hinata from standing up, chucking when the boy struggled to get it off.
“Well, you heard my friend, hand over your cash if you don’t want a good beating, shrimp.”
“N—No…” Hinata’s voice was fragile, but broke through the laughter of the three bullies. All stopped just and stared daggers at him, glared at him as though he was the one that was in the wrong.
“You say something, Chibi-chan?”
“I—I said n—no!” Again the redhead shook his head, attempting to muster some courage in hopes his athletic training had given him enough strength to beat these guys somehow.
Of course, it hadn’t.
“Oh~? And who said you could deny?” The foot came down on him with greater strength this time, to the point he had no other choice but to drop flat on the ground, unable to keep his body up.
Hinata gritted his teeth, preventing a grunt of pain to leave him. He couldn’t allow these idiots further satisfaction. His pain was their gain and it needed to stop.
Someone had to come to his rescue sooner or later. Wasn’t this area normally filled with people? They were close to a park, so why the hell was nobody around at 5 in the afternoon?
“D—Dammit, j—just take my bag and leave me alone…” the redhead screeched through the pain, attempting to glare at the boys but impossible by the force on his head. There was no way he could save his money then even with the front he had attempted to put up, and either way he was going to be beaten. There was no way out of this without getting hurt, he thought.
“Eh~? Take your bag? Now that wouldn’t be much fun, would it?” one of them said, reaching for the bag that had fallen to the floor and throwing it right besides his face. “How about you do us the honor of handing it over for us?”
Hinata didn’t move.
More like he couldn’t than wouldn’t. He wasn’t sure how to even do so without receiving a sure kick to the face by these guys.
And he didn’t know how to react. He really didn’t. It was frightening, feeling his uselessness all of a sudden in this situation. He came to realize at some point that he had no way out of this other then a miracle, one he did not see coming any time soon.
His eyes shut close roughly; teeth gritted.
If only it wasn’t a Sunday. If only he hadn’t gone out to buy anything at all. If only—
The impending kick to the face came later then he expected, but it came and he felt the pain surge right through his skull, resonate his whole body, and making him whimper and bleed through his nose.
“What? You scared, Chibi-chan?” the one holding him down laughed, only to give another kick.
And again.
And again.
Covering his face with both hands only rushed pain through his whole fingers and arms. It did no good to protect him, little less ease the pain.
Expecting the next one, Hinata whimpered, nearly sobbed, feeling the blood from his nose drip to the ground beneath him, feeling the pain now giving him the worse headache of his life.
But it didn’t come.
Hinata remained with both hands on his face, fearing the bullies were playing tricks on him.
Only they weren’t, and when his mind finally fell in place he made sense of his hearing abilities.
Had someone just called on them?
Slowly, cautiously, the redhead rose his head, and what he saw he doubted he would ever forget.
Kageyama Tobio, holding the bully up the same way he had held Hinata Shouyou by the collar. His eyes were narrowed, menacing, and upon Hinata looking closer, very frightening.
“Kage—“
“Get the hell out of here, Yamato,” Kageyama pushed the boy back with minor effort, yet the boy still fell back on his bottom with a thump.
Glaring green eyes came from the boy whom Hinata now figured was Yamato, as said boy came to his feet and turned his back on Kageyama.
“Let’s go, guys,” despite his low voice, the rest of his group understood and scurried to their feet, rushing to their leader’s side like loyal dogs.
A beat and an hand was stretched out right before the redhead, who’s body shook with fright, and could only look up after a few seconds of his mind settling on what he had just seen, and what he had just gone through.
When his eyes met with the dark blue of Kageyama’s he couldn’t help but compare him with some type of angel-- a guardian angel-- yet at the same time some type of demon, an oni.
He couldn’t tell him apart at all.
“Hey, come on,” Kageyama attempted eye contact with the shorter boy, hoping something of reassurance would be present in his gestures. He wasn’t sure if it did because he was too focused on the hand that had actually complied to his request, and the act of helping him up on his quivering feet.
“How--?”
The redhead didn’t seem he was about to finish his question. Kageyama wasn’t exactly psychic, so he guessed and gave an answer that met his own conclusions.
“I was passing by and saw what they were doing to you,” he mumbled, looking down in search of the hazel eyes buried within the field of red hair before him. He could not find them.
“N—No, that’s not…”
“Hey.” Kageyama wasn’t sure what this feeling bubbling within his chest was. Anger at those imbeciles for hurting Hinata, sympathy for the beaten and bruised boy standing in front of him, worry for the injuries he had received, or…
No, thinking about his feelings now was not a good thing. Instead he resorted to the only thing he could do to make this situation less heavy. He patted Hinata’s head, not too roughly, not too softly but enough so that Hinata would somehow find his common gesture comforting. “Let’s just get you home, those bruises don’t look too good.”
Blood was still dripping down from Hinata’s nose. Surely he was in pain, more than Kageyama could tell.
Hinata gritted his teeth.
“Kageyama I…”
Fists clenched.
“I…”
Hazel eyes hid behind red hairs but were shut tight, in order for the words to be successfully pushed out.
“I…couldn’t do anything.” Admitting it out loud didn’t make much of a difference at all, because Hinata had been aware of this all along, but the sob that escaped his mouth was enough to have Kageyama know that the bullies had hurt Hinata in more ways than one. Physical pain only added up to emotional pain, always.
“It’s ok, Hinata, just—“
The shorter boy held in his sobs, and furiously dried his tears with his sleeves one after the other and so on. It took him more then a minute to calm himself down. By then Kageyama had cautiously began walking him home leading the shorted boy by wrapping his arm around his shoulders. There wasn’t much he could say, or do, to make Hinata feel better, so he decided to keep silent, to let the boy calm down on his own and just walk alongside him. The course of actions were to take him home, to keep him company and lead the way.
True Hinata Shouyou was a ray of sunshine at all times, but when the dark came it was something completely different; unknown to the raven.
If Kageyama hadn’t come when he did, if Kageyama hadn’t had the threatening aura he usually had, what would Hinata have done? Get beaten until he reached his limit? Get sent to the hospital? And be stolen and ripped out of his own happy little world? The latter seemed to be the one, which they successfully had achieved.
It hadn’t been the first time Hinata had ever been bullied, but it had been the first time he had been successfully beaten and mocked in such a way.
Kageyama Tobio was many things to Hinata Shouyou and vice versa, but Kageyama was not the only one to hold such a way of thinking. Today he was Hinata’s own miracle.