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Tobio sits slouched on the changing room bench, towel thrown over the back of his neck as a clock on the wall ticks distantly by. He frowns – eyes narrowed – and clicks his tongue. A horrible, teeth-gritting, hair-splitting voice is echoing throughout the room, emanating from a certain Iwaizumi Hajime’s phone as he holds it up at elbow’s height, allowing its sound to disperse as far and loudly as humanly possible. If he were anyone else, Tobio would have long since smacked the device out of his hands and stomped on it.
But he isn’t someone else. And that terrible voice belongs to Oikawa no less, so even if Tobio did try to smack it away, Iwa probably wouldn’t let him.
Especially now. Now, when he’s playing a voice message that was apparently left for him this morning, glaring at Tobio as the recording plays as if he’s to blame for the predicament he finds himself in. Tobio can’t help but think that this whole situation is a little stupid. That, and sort of…weird.
“Iwa-chaaaaaaaaaaan,” Oikawa says, sounding slightly wobbly through the phone. “Chibi-chan really is very good…he’s better than you! Not that I expected any less when I met him on the beach. He’s filled out a lot, y’know? Since high school I mean.”
A vein in Tobio’s temple twitches. Why is he like this? How someone as cool and suave as Iwaizumi-san ended up in a relationship with Oikawa is simply beyond him. There’s a lot of stuff Tobio knows he’s simply too dumb to understand, but this is the kind of thing he’s pretty sure just doesn’t make sense in general.
Oikawa’s ramblings are interrupted by a sudden giggle. This one would be too scratchy to be deciphered by most, but Tobio recognizes it no problem. It doesn’t take long for Hinata to devolve into full on laughter in the background, while Oikawa fights through his own fit of hysterics to force out a strained goodbye. The line clicks abruptly, ending the voicemail, and then there’s silence once again.
Tobio taps his foot against the ground. Chews his bottom lip.
“So,” Iwaizumi says, and his face is so plain and still Tobio feels chills run up his spine. He’s not even the one the guy is mad at, but still – Iwaizumi is a lot like Daichi was, and it didn’t take much from Daichi to get him straightening at his first words either. “You see what I mean now?”
Tobio sighs. “Yeah,” he grunts, arms crossed, and tilts his head back to regard the ceiling. Oh to be a ceiling light, unconcerned about stupid red-headed crushes and their equally stupid shit-haired friends.
“I know you and Hinata aren’t officially together,” Iwaizumi says, and Tobio jolts, an uncomfortable feeling rising in his stomach. “But you two have totally got something going. Everyone knows it, including the rest of the Adlers. This has to be just as annoying to you as it is to me.”
“Sure,” he mutters, absentmindedly drawing calming circles on his forearm. “But you and Oikawa…You two are actually a thing, aren’t you? This should be far more concerning to you than it would be to me.”
Wrong thing to say. Iwaizumi throws his hands into the air like he’s being arrested and scoffs, turning away to pace in a small circle. “You know what?” He begins, and Tobio groans, because Iwaizumi’s soul is that of a total dad and anytime he starts a sentence with the words you know what, it’ll automatically be a boring one that spans over the course of the next hour and a half. “I don’t even care about that. My point is: This piece of shit has been sending these voicemails to me for the entire week, and no matter how many times I tell him to screw off and to stop being a damn idiot, he sends another one. It’s ridiculous! I can’t seem to catch a break and I love him, I do, but I want to throw him through a wall every time I listen to one of these stupid messages when I get home. Did you know he calls me specifically when I’m working just to make sure I don’t pick up? Because he does! He does!”
Tobio nods, following Iwaizumi’s frame as he stalks back and forth in an irritated frenzy. He rarely sees Iwa get this upset, and he’s known him since he was in his first year of Junior High. It seems this whole situation has him more on edge than he’d bargained for.
“Do you…” he starts, and Iwaizumi pauses, stopping to look at him. “Do you think Oikawa is unfaithful?”
There’s a short window of time during which the two of them stare at one another in silence, and then a wide grin stretches over Iwaizumi’s face, erasing whatever displeasure had been there before. “Of course not,” he snorts, looking amused. “He facetimes me in bed every night, so I know where he is and who he’s with. Plus, I trust him. That’s not my problem here.”
Confusion strikes like a hammer. “Then what is the problem?”
“The problem,” Iwaizumi says, and his smile once again drops, “is that Toru is just trying to get on my fucking nerves, and it’s working. Well. I want him to shut up so that I can live I peace.”
“Oh,” Tobio says. “So – what. He’s actually making you jealous? Even though you know he doesn’t feel anything for Hinata?”
Iwaizumi Hajime, the unshakeable and immoveable Iwaizumi Hajime, turns a shade rosy. “Don’t say it like that,” he hisses, closing his eyes as if to regain composure. “And besides, imagine Hinata saying all this stuff to you about Oikawa. How would you feel?”
Tobio tries to imagine it, and decides that he wouldn’t feel very great.
“Exactly,” Iwaizumi concludes. “It’s exasperating. Come on, from upperclassman to underclassman – former teammate to former teammate. You’ve always wanted revenge on Toru anyway, right? Please just help me out. Or at least bump Hinata out of the picture so that he loses inspiration.”
Tobio sighs. “You don’t know if Hinata feels that way about me, though.” His throat tightens, thick with sudden emotion, and it takes incredible effort not to let it show. “Besides, I’m garbage at talking on the phone. You know that. There’s not much I could say, anyway.”
Iwaizumi’s face falls. “Oh Tobio,” he starts, “you know Hinata-“
“We have practice tomorrow morning.” Tobio hoists his gym bag over his shoulder and makes for the exit, sliding the towel off from around his neck. “Have to get to bed early. Good luck, I hope you work things out together.”
The sound of the door shutting closed rings in his ears, and he tries not to think too much about the twisting feeling he gets in his guts at the implication of what he’s just said.
***
The apartment is dark and cold when Tobio steps inside, the only sound the hum of the refrigerator coming in from the kitchen.
It feels less like a home and more just like shelter, a roof and four walls to keep him safe from the elements with a few accommodations to help him pass the time. There’s nothing meaningful, nothing of value inside, and he can’t help but think that if the whole place burnt to a crisp, there’d be no memories lost to its ashes. None at all.
It’s a depressing train of thought, so he tries to focus his mind on something else. The gym bag over his shoulder drops to the floor with a dull thump, and he trudges his way into the bedroom, shedding his clothes as he goes. His phone is out and on his favorite restaurant’s website in record speed, the menu listed on the screen in small, black font. He orders his usual, a pork curry with dumplings and a fizzy milk drink, then rolls over to flop on his back in a widespread starfish position. His limbs hang half off the bed, dangling uncomfortably over the edge.
Why is it that thinking of Hinata always makes him feel so weird? Besides the obvious – the fact that he’s definitely, assuredly, one hundred percent in love with him – it’s not like they’ve ever really talked about taking their relationship further. They’d had something going on for sure during their last year of high school, but they’d both mutually agreed to hold off on things until Hinata was back from Brazil and their careers were less clouded in uncertainty.
But since then they’ve simply…drifted. Not really apart per se, but they’ve drifted somewhere odd, to a weird point where they’re both best friends and also just…something else. Tobio has tried to bring it up several times while they were on call, but Hinata would just change the subject.
The point is: There’s nothing there, not really, no matter what anyone else says. It’s a little bit terrible. Tobio wishes things could be different, but alas, they are not. Which is whatever; Tobio does what he loves every day and he has good teammates, so nothing else matters, right? He earns good money, lives well, eats well. Hinata should play a very little role in how much happiness he feels.
He should. That doesn’t exactly mean he does.
The phone, resting forgotten in Tobio’s open palm, buzzes with a new notification. Turning the screen towards his face, he sees a pop up from the messages app.
Hinata Shouyou: 1 new message
It’s almost sad how quickly he opens it. With fingers shaking only slightly, he thumbs in his password, rolling back onto his stomach in order to text more comfortably, and clicks the messages icon without a second thought. Excitement always bubbles in his stomach whenever he gets a text from Hinata without notice, child-like anticipation flooding his veins as he prepares to dedicate himself to conversing with his best friend for at least the next hour. They tend to be like that together, getting caught up in the moment. You place them in an empty room with nothing to stimulate their brains but each other, and they’d be set for a solid day.
The too-bright screen illuminates the room in a soft blue glow. Knowing Hinata, Tobio thinks, tapping Hinata’s contact, it’s probably a really dumb meme. Or a GIF of something twerking. He typically cycles through those two possibilities at random, on varying levels of explicitness, to which Tobio will reply with a picture of himself doing some kind of vulgar gesture.
He smiles to himself. It’s currently 10:26PM in Tokyo, which means that Hinata will probably be-
Tobio gasps softly.
The phone slips from his grasp.
He sits up straight, way too quickly, and quite literally cracks his spine with the force of it. Because right there on the screen, in his hands, before his own two eyes, it had been – it must have been – it couldn’t be anything but –
Tobio snatches the phone back up from the ground in an instant and stares with his jaw open at the sight of Hinata Shouyou with his lips pressed against Oikawa Toru’s cheek, eyes shut tight in delight. Oikawa himself looks quite pleased as well, beaming widely into the camera. From the way it’s shot, Tobio can tell that the picture was taken on his phone – so Hinata must have deliberately asked Oikawa to send it to him, for this sole purpose only: To piss the living daylights out of Tobio’s ass, and to be a cheeky piece of shit.
Steam must be coming out of his ears because the room is suddenly extremely hot. For a moment all Tobio can feel is a deep-seeded emptiness, the kind that crops up whenever he doesn’t do well in practice, or that used to crop up when people called him “The King of The Court”. That, and a substantial amount of jealousy.
It’s just…so unfair! The voice messages to Iwa were one thing, but to be sent such visual evidence is entirely another. He’s been slaving away in Japan dedicating second after second to Hinata, never once considering the possibility of being with anyone else. And there Hinata is, kissing Oikawa Toru on the cheek like everything is jolly good, all the way over on the other side of the world. It hurts a little, despite knowing for a fact that the picture is indeed a joke.
Tobio can’t bring himself to text anything back. The frustration that had first arisen quickly gives way to something different: Anger burns in his stomach, red and scorching, the flames of it licking at every organ in his core. Tobio has never loved anyone other than Hinata before, so this sting is very new, but alas; Tobio doesn’t like it. Not one bit.
The phone is ringing not a second later. Pressed to his ear, Tobio waits until the line clicks.
“Hello?”
“Iwaizumi.” Tobio smiles, shifting so that the phone rests between his head and shoulder. His hands occupy themselves with his laptop, resting on the nightstand, typing in the name of a nearby jewelry store website. “Is it too late to take you up on that offer from earlier today?”
***
Tobio is not an impulsive person.
He tends to think things through thoroughly before he acts, which may or may not be a good thing. Perhaps it is a good thing, except he takes it too far – often. Middle school is nothing but an old shadow of a memory at this point, but he still remembers the terror and utter loneliness that had followed the worst mistake of his life. He tries very hard not to mess up so as to avoid ever feeling like that again, and hence he worries and stews and contemplates until there’s not a cubic millimeter of space left for error.
Of course (entirely unsurprisingly), Hinata is his undoing in almost everything. This remains true, for better or for worse, when it comes to how he reacts to heartbreak.
So, here he is. His fists are clenched and he’s a little embarrassed, but there’s an odd feeling of gleeful satisfaction taking root in his stomach at the way Iwaizumi’s phone rings and rings on the bench of the team’s locker room, not to be answered. They sit side by side in companionable silence, watching. The ringing stops for a minute. Then it starts back up for the sixth time in a row in the past ten minutes, and Tobio can’t help the laugh that escapes his mouth.
“What?” Iwaizumi smiles, turning to him with a playful glint in his eyes. “Why are you laughing?”
“Sorry,” Tobio begins, attempting to catch his breath, before dissolving into more giggles.
For whatever reason, this makes Iwaizumi snort rather loudly. Tobio howls, bending over on the bench so far he nearly falls off at the sound of it, and Iwaizumi joins him, slapping his lap audibly. The sound of it only succeeds in making them both lose it even further. “Stop,” Tobio wheezes, and Iwaizumi snorts again, so loudly like he can’t help it, and they’re gone.
It takes a good half hour for them to calm down. The ringing has stopped, the phone silent, and Tobio lets loose one final chuckle at the sight of it. Iwaizumi is breathing heavily, letting out an occasional whoooooooo, air blowing past his lips in a relieved sigh.
“This is so stupid,” he eventually says, into the silence of the locker room. Iwaizumi turns to look at him, still grinning from ear to ear, and they smirk.
So worth it, though.
“You think Shitty-kawa’s done barraging me with calls now?” Iwaizumi looks genuinely curious, reaching over to take his phone in hand and check the notifications. Tobio peaks over and spots 17 missed calls highlighted over the background. “This thing is gonna blow up if he contacts me any more.”
Tobio shrugs. “Dunno. Who cares? He’s mad, that’s all that matters.”
Iwaizumi holds a hand to his chest, looking dramatically shocked. “How could you say that?!” He demands, then, like an afterthought, “sweetheart?”
And ah…this is what everything has come to.
The terrible pet name makes Tobio cringe, and he shakes his head as if to physically rid himself of it. “Please no,” he groans, to which Iwaizumi slaps him on the back with a cackle. And it’s then that he feels it: The ring. The one Tobio wears on his own ring finger, an identical match, pressing into the skin of his shoulder blade.
They’re married – and they have the jewelry to sell it.
It’s by no means legally official. That’s way too much paperwork, and neither Tobio nor Iwaizumi are that petty. But it looks real, and that’s what matters. They’d taken a picture of their hands joined together and then posted it on Iwaizumi’s Twitter account, with a caption that was lengthy as much as it was cheesy, followed by a ridiculous amount of hashtags. The post had gone wild moments later, though not as wild as the calls Oikawa immediately sent his boyfriend’s way in lieu of the announcement.
And so that’s that. Here they are, rings on their fingers, married as far as the world is concerned, and completely uncaring of it all. It’s the dumbest thing ever and it’s great.
When Tobio gets home from practice that afternoon, he drops his bag on the floor and makes his way to the kitchen for a snack. Luckily for him, Iwaizumi’s a highly respected trainer amongst the league – and given that he’s not actually a player, PR isn’t technically allowed to nag at him for whatever drama he culls. Tobio gets to reap the benefits of being one of his favorites; and it’s not like he makes a habit of doing stuff like this often, anyway.
Long story short, he isn’t in trouble. But he did get mobbed at practice, and crowded outside the gymnasium doors. His social battery is sufficiently drained, and a decent snack is the least of what he deserves after dealing with today.
His fingers are just beginning to close around a jar of nuts in the cupboard, when a sudden cacophony of chaotic noise explodes from somewhere across the room.
Tobio nearly trips and takes the whole shelf with him. He finds purchase against the counter, blinking in surprise, and takes stock of the chimes echoing out over his surroundings non-stop like bees in a hive. It’s the most annoying thing Tobio’s ever heard, so he marches straight to the source of the sound – his phone? – and glares at it.
Oh.
It’s Hinata.
Hinata, who’s name lights the screen, followed by snippets of messages. The first few are just strings of the word Tobio capitalized completely over and over again, then a rapid-fire series of questions he’s unable to follow through notifications alone. His eyes scan over the screen quickly, top to bottom. The notifications keep scrolling up because Hinata won’t stop texting him.
When a call comes in, blaring loud and disruptive through the apartment, Tobio scrambles to get the phone in hand. Shit, he thinks, then, as his finger slips and presses “accept”, another shit! He’s forced to pick up, and has to take several deep breaths before raising the dang thing to his ear.
“Uh,” he begins, stuttering into the device. “H-hello-“
“TOBIO,” Hinata’s voice thunders, and Tobio physically recoils.
“…Hey.”
There’s a stretch of silence. For a second he’s worried Hinata has hung up on him, and he’s about to lower the phone to check when there’s a shuddering breath on the other side of the line, followed by a whispered, “what. The. Fuck.”
Tobio schools his face into an expression of bored neutrality. “What do you mean?”
“Wha – What do I mean? What do you mean, ‘what do you mean’ – TOBIO! YOU GOT FUCKING MARRIED TO IWAIZUMI HAJIME AND NEVER FUCKING TOLD ME?!”
What a joke his life has become.
He considers fessing up now, and telling Hinata that it isn’t true. But then Hinata would tell Oikawa, and Oikawa would just get even more annoying…And Tobio respects Iwaizumi too much for that. So, with a resounding huff, he squares his shoulders and says, “yeah. So?”
“Tobio.” Hinata sounds so mad now. So mad. “How could you get married and not fucking tell me?”
That sparks a flicker of irritation. “Rich, coming from the guy who skipped around Brazil getting comfy with Oikawa Toru, of all people, without fucking telling me. I can do whatever I want, dumbass.”
“With Oik- with- you- WHAAAAAAT?!” Hinata has become a sputtering mess, glitching the connection. He sounds scratchy. “That is NOT the same thing! Tobio, we – I thought – you have to be kidding right now, right?”
“Nope.” Tobio pops the “p”. “I’m tired, anyway. Isn’t it, like, two in the morning over there? Why are you up?”
“Don’t try and change the subject you stupid moron, tell me why you think Oikawa and I are-“
“Goodnight, dumbass.” The line clicks dead.
Throwing the phone onto the couch like it’s burning him, Tobio scuttles back to the kitchen and blatantly ignores the sound of it ringing from the living room. It only dies down a full hour later, by which point he’s locked himself in his room, ears covered by a headset blasting too-loud music into his ears.
***
“Nice practice today, boys,” Coach Suzaku says, looking over the entire team with a gentle smile on his face. “Don’t forget to do your stretches; we’ll work on those revised drills we went over tomorrow. Thank you.”
“What a pain,” Hoshiumi grunts, moving away to sit on the floor next to Tobio and Ushijima. Everyone has spread out, some laying against the wall, others sprinkled in various places across the training gym’s courts. “I’m at my wits end.”
“With Coach or the drills?” Ushijima asks, extending a leg and reaching over to wrap both hands around his foot. Tobio follows suit, grunting a little at the uncomfortable stretch. The ring, which he hasn’t removed all weak, pressed hard into his skin.
“With the drills of course. You couldn’t catch me dead saying anything against Coach.”
Tobio snorts, because he isn’t sure whether Hoshiumi says this out of fear of Coach Suzaku or genuine respect. A hearty deal of both, probably. He still remembers the first week of practice with this current roster, and how Coach had pleasantly threatened to “donate” players to their opponents at the next official match after receiving a noise complaint from the gym maintenance staff (it was Hoshiumi who’d been screeching about something in the locker rooms, and was too afraid to fess up. Tobio thinks Coach Suzaku knows it was him, anyway).
“He isn’t that scary, is he?” Ushijima asks monotonously. “I think he is rather gentle-mannered.”
Hoshiumi tsks. “Pish posh. You only say that because you skipped the scary captain experience in high school.”
“What?” Ushijima turns to Tobio, looking mildly quizzical. “But Sawamura was not-“
“He was definitely scary.”
“Oh.”
Hoshiumi snorts, and shakes his head. “You were the scary captain, bro. Like calls to like.”
Ushijima raises a single eyebrow. “But Tobio is also of intimidating stature, yes?”
“Not in the way you are,” Tobio replies evenly. “You’re more serious.”
Ushijima contemplates this, then opens his mouth as if to agree. But before he can say anything his gaze catches on something behind Tobio, and he freezes, eyes a little wide, forgotten words whistling quietly past his lips as his head tilts slightly to the side. “Tobio,” he begins, looking oddly concerned, “are you expecting…any visitors?”
“Huh?” Tobio frowns. “No. Why?”
“Uhhhhhhhhhhh,” Hoshiumi is now also looking behind him, frowning. “There’s…someone here to see you, I think.”
Tobio turns and feels all the blood drain from his face.
Hinata Shouyou stands framed in one of the doorways to the gym, dressed in casual slacks and a threadbare hoodie. He’s looking directly at him, eyes stormy with too many emotions to place. He waits one second, two, three, then seems to lose patience and crook his finger in a come hither motion. The look on his face says he has no patience to argue on it.
“Fuck,” Hoshiumi mutters. “What the hell happened, dude? He looks maaaaaaad.”
“I believe I might know,” Ushijima says gently, and Tobio whips around, finding the opposite hitter already staring directly at him with his well-cultivated intensity. “Go, Tobio. I have a feeling your friend is scarier than the both of us combined when he is upset.”
That is very true. Tobio can’t bring himself to voice it out loud as he stands, very slowly, excusing himself to Coach Suzaku (who has spotted Hinata and is looking at him with an expression of mild terror) before making his way deliberately slowly to the silently enraged spiker.
“Um,” he starts, but Hinata raises his hand and turns brusquely. Tobio is forced to follow as they walk through the winding hallways, his companion stomping rather forcefully as if the building itself has somehow wronged him. Eventually – finally – they arrive at the men’s locker room, and Hinata pushes inside, swinging the door open with so much force it bangs into the wall.
“Hey, what are-“
“You.”
Tobio’s mouth falls shut.
Hinata has tears in his eyes. But he isn’t sad or in anguish or even distressed; he just looks extremely frustrated, arms crossed tightly over his chest as one of his feet tap impatiently against the tiled floor. Tap tap tap. It looks like he’s waiting for something. Tobio has no idea what to offer him, so he just gulps, and murmurs, “hi…?”
“Don’t ‘hi’ me,” Hinata hisses. “Explain yourself, asshole.”
“Explain what?”
And see, here’s the thing. Hinata is by no means a violent person. He’s generally extremely peaceful, relying mostly on his words to carry him through any conflict that comes his way. It’s one of the most admirable things about him, and is a defining trait of his character. It’s part of what makes Hinata so Hinata, how he uses communication to reflect exactly what he wants in any given situation.
But Hinata is also very passionate about the things he cares about. Which is a good thing, sure; but like all good things, it’s only really very good in moderation. He’ll get pushy if he’s being denied something he truly believes he deserves, and if that means throwing a few hands here or there, he’ll do it in a heartbeat.
Now, apparently, is one of those times.
Hinata reaches for Tobio’s right wrist and grabs it in a grip so strong Tobio is worried his circulation will just cut out entirely, then yanks it up so hard he feels the tug in his shoulder socket. He lets out a yelp, which is cut off but Hinata shoving the captured wrist straight into his face. He almost hits him with it.
“This,” he seethes, those amber eyes cutting sharp. If looks could kill, Tobio would be well and truly dead. “Explain this stupid fucking ring around your finger, and why Iwaizumi Hajime wears a matching one.”
“Oh,” Tobio says weakly. “That.” And then: “Wait – did you come all the way home to talk to me about some ring? From Brazil?”
Hinata flushes bright red, joints locking up with discomfort at the accusatory remark. “N-nevermind that! Just explain this damn ring to me, Tobio! Why?!”
And Tobio wants to keep up the lie, he really does, but Hinata is simply too special, and he was never very good at keeping the truth from him to begin with. “I did it for Iwaizumi-san,” he says all in one breath, and though getting Hinata this riled up for the bullshit he pulled with the photo felt good, Ushijima was right: Hinata really is incredibly scary when he’s actually pissed, and Tobio was beginning to worry he wouldn’t make it out of this locker room alive.
“You did it for-? What?”
“For Iwaizumi-san.” Tobio feels a weight lift from his shoulders, and sags against the closed door, eyes falling shut. “Oikawa kept sending him really annoying voice-messages and wouldn’t stop no matter how many times Iwaizumi told him to shut up, so he asked me to help pull a prank to piss him off back. We bought rings and got permission from my PR team to put some dumb post online. Fooled him, as far as I know.”
“Yeah well, it fooled me too!” Hinata finally let’s go of his wrist, and Tobio opens his eyes to look at him, teeth clenched together with unyielding force. He appears to feel incensed, and perhaps also something akin to relief. “I just went on Twitter one day and saw some huge headliner saying you got married and I swear to God, Tobio, I’ll kill you. God. Jesus fucking Christ, I damn near had a heart attack!” His feet take him pacing back and forth, arms gesturing to and fro. “Why didn’t you just tell me from the beginning that it was a prank?”
“I didn’t want you to tell Oikawa. That would ruin it for Iwaizumi.” The excuse is clumsy on his tongue, and he knows it.
Hinata catches this too, already well accustomed to his quirks. “No,” he growls, halting his pacing to pin that terrifying gaze back on him. “It’s more than that. I know it is. When I called you a week ago, trying to figure everything out, you mentioned Oikawa and I, like – getting comfy together? Or whatever! What did that mean?”
Tobio groans internally. This is way too deep a conversation to be had in some dingy, sweat-smelling locker room. “Can we please talk about this-“
Hinata slams a hand into the door right next to Tobio’s head, and it echoes so loudly in the space around them he thinks for a moment that it was a gunshot. “Not later,” he says, dead calm. “Now.”
This feels less and less like a genuine confrontation and more like some sort of violent transaction by the second.
“I just…” Tobio is looking anywhere but at Hinata’s face. “I just didn’t think that…I thought that you were maybe into Oikawa a little bit? Or…something.”
That isn’t quite it, but Tobio has no idea how to explain what he felt seeing that picture of Hinata kissing the man’s cheek. This is as close as he’ll get.
“You thought-? Tobio. What?”
And maybe, in some other universe, if he were born with a little more patience, he’d be able to stand still and think of a decent way to reply to Hinata’s confusion. Perhaps, in that universe, he’s more eloquent, more well-spoken, and less emotionally constipated. Then he’d explain himself, explain everything, and be done with it. They’d both go on their merry way.
As it stands, Tobio is none of those things. More than anything: He’s impatient. That, and also very, very insecure about all this relationship nonsense, the complexities of it swirling around in his head like a huge murder of crows.
“Listen, dumbass,” he can’t help but retort, and Hinata’s shoulders raise at the tone, preparing for the impending fight. “I’m not the one who ignored you and brushed you off every time you tried to talk about whatever this…this thing is, when we called on the phone. I’m not the one who got all buddy-buddy with Oikawa and left you in the dust when you were already confused about our weird ass relationship. I’m not the one who made you feel unimportant when we promised, we promised, Hinata, to stay close no matter the distance. So what if I pretended to get married to Iwaizumi-san for a week to annoy stupid Oikawa? Can you blame me for maybe wanting to let you feel a little of what you’ve made me feel for the past year? How was I supposed to know I’m any more important to you than Oikawa when you won’t freaking talk to me about us?”
He's panting.
He’s panting so, so hard, breath stolen by the sincerity and frustration of his own words. All this pent up bitterness, gone in a jumble of sentences.
Hinata is staring at him, lips pressed tightly together, eyes wide. The angry tears from before are gone. Now, he just looks…well, Tobio isn’t sure what he looks like. Despaired? Miserable? It’s that and something else, something with an undertone of resentment he knows is not meant for him. It looks like regret, almost. Regret, and wretched heartbreak.
“Tobio,” he says gently, then, “Fuck. Tobio, you are important to me. Oh my god, if you’ve been walking around Tokyo all year not thinking you’re important to me, then I really messed up. I’m sorry, oh my god.”
Tobio stares at him. “You – what?”
“You’re the most important person in my entire life,” he says resolutely, out of the blue, and Tobio thinks he’s dead. “I’m so sorry I haven’t talked to you about…about our relationship, and stuff. I was just so worried that we wouldn’t be able to discuss things properly over the phone, you know? Because you’re just…you’re so important. And I wasn’t sure if just…saying it over the phone would be enough.”
“…Oh.”
“Yeah.” Hinata hesitantly reaches forward to touch his hand, and Tobio, in a burst a courage, winds their fingers together. “I still figured, though, that you knew you would always be the goal that I worked towards even when I was on the other side of the world. We discussed things a bit at graduation, after all. I guess I just didn’t think you’d ever doubt that that would change.”
“I didn’t. Not really, at least.” Tobio swings their joined hands absent-mindedly, staring off into space. “But I’ve been feeling so unsure lately, and then there was the build-up of you not wanting to talk about things and then the photo with Oikawa and…I don’t know. It got to me more than I realized.”
“I’m sorry,” Hinata says again, voice soft as a downy pillow. “It was supposed to be a joke, like, with a friend. I didn’t think you’d take it seriously, but that was my bad.” Then he smiles, playful and silly. “You really are wayyy more important to me than Oikawa-san is, though. That you’ll never have to second guess.”
“Not a high-bar, I hope,” Tobio mutters, and Hinata laughs, the sound of it filling his head with a thick fog as he jumps at him, looping his arms around Tobio’s neck and touching them forehead to forehead. They breathe together, always so in sync, and when his stupid partner leans forward and presses a short kiss to his lips, he beams so wide he thinks it could maybe rival Hinata’s own sunny smile.
Maybe. Probably not, but that doesn’t matter.
Tobio dives in for more and everything melts away, the locker room and the air and the gravity holding them to the ground, lost to the push and pull of their mouths. He feels like he’s floating, untethered. Hinata gives as good as he gets, grinning against him, and when his tongue darts out to lick at the seam of his lips before biting at the bottom one and sucking, Tobio almost groans. He ends up wheezing instead, loses his mind a little, and then there’s just…nothing. Nothing beyond a haze of pleasure and happiness, seeping into his very pores.
It's wet and messy and sloppy. It’s also the best kiss ever, in all the history of the world.
They require a while to cool off, unable to dispel their energy as time passes slow like molasses. The end of it all finds Hinata leaning against Tobio who still leans against the door, puffing into the hot air of the room.
“I forget sometimes, with how well you know me, that you aren’t actually capable of reading my mind,” Hinata whispers after a few moments of silence, nuzzling into the crook of Tobio’s neck. “I’m really sorry. I’ll remember that when I go back.”
“Okay,” Tobio murmurs. His lips are kind of really swollen, so shorter answers are all he can really manage at the moment. “Thank you.”
Hinata nods, then grabs Tobio’s face, those eyes of his suddenly on fire all over again, any hints of dazed affection lost. They look like twin pools of molten lava, spilling from his sockets ready to burn into Tobio’s skull. “You have to get rid of that damned ring though,” he says, voice rumbling like that of a god. “And tell Iwaizumi that his little stunt is over. You hear me? That guy is done.”
Tobio nods very quickly, more than a little afraid, and leans forward again, chasing for more kisses.
***
The next day Tobio has to tell Iwaizumi that he needs to remove the ring and fess up to their fans, and also that Hinata Shouyou probably really hates him now. Iwaizumi just lets out a laugh, the kind that comes from deep inside his belly, and says that he already told Oikawa the truth like four days ago and that he’d been waiting – because he knew, he knew – for Tobio to work things out himself.