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After the heater broke in her little apartment, and after 37 minutes of worrying and crying about whether she is going to freeze to death and, “what if I wake up and I’m an icicle! I don’t want to be an icicle! Or what if everything turns to ice and I slip and die trying to make hot coco! Then the coco will freeze and--!!” Hinata, being the generous person he is, invited Yachi to stay in his apartment that he shared with Kageyama until her heating could be fixed. Now, normally this would be fine. Yachi didn’t have any problems whatsoever with staying with her best friends for a day or so. Only, the repairman had called and said it might take a few days to repair the broken heater. That was over a month ago.
“Your heater must really be broken,” Hinata had said, mouth full of marshmallows that he had thrown into the shopping cart last week when Kageyama wasn’t looking.
“Maybe he isn’t coming,” Kageyama had supplied helpfully, sitting lazily near the arm of the worn couch that had been a gift from his mother, and tried to inconspicuously slurp up the marshmallows from his own cup of hot coco. Hitoka gripped her mug, void of any marshmallows thank you very much, and stared tensely at how Hinata plopped next to Kageyama, marshmallow bag in hand, and just stared at him.
“I’ll buy some more tomorrow,” Kageyama finally said, after a few quiet seconds. And after another few seconds: “No, you ate half the chocolate bars and now we don’t have enough for s’mores. It wasn’t me and it definitely wasn’t Yachi, so don’t give me that.”
Hinata groaned, and in a fit of exasperation and something else Hitoka knew, but couldn’t yet confirm, he leaned forward and draped himself over the other boy’s lap, arms hanging over the armrest.
“You’re so difficult,” Hinata mumbled.
“I wasn’t the one who ate all the chocolate bars.”
Hinata flipped over so he was facing him, and flicked a marshmallow from the bag into Kageyama’s face. Rolling his eyes, he confessed: “Okay. Fine. I ate most of the marshmallows.”
Hinata smiled. “So we’re even then.”
Another eye roll. A chuckle. Hitoka felt really out of place sitting on something that shouldn’t be classified as a chair.
Without hesitation, Kageyama picked up the television remote from the end table and turned the tv on to the sports channel. Hinata made a face at the basketball game that was currently playing, so Kageyama changed it to a foreign science channel featuring a lot of explosions and electricity.
“GwuAAHH did you see that!!! He blew up the test dummy!”
“Obviously, I’m watching it too, dumbass.”
They continued watching, their dear friend forgotten amongst the exploding cars and duct tape rafts.
{Since their apartment was small, and, unfortunately only had one room, the boys had been sharing one space; the original idea was to have two futons and just deal with the other’s shit everywhere, and this had worked for the first few weeks of their new life of co-habitation. However, since they had moved in the fall, once winter started rearing its ugly head, things …changed. Hinata decided that it was too cold at night, and that Kageyama had way too many blankets on his futon and that wasn’t fair, and he was sure he wouldn’t notice if he just…took one (or two) from his pile. Kageyama noticed. And so the Blanket War of November 2014 ensued. The ending results were as follows: after a few weeks of midnight Blanket Snatching, an unspoken agreement had been made that sleeping side by side in one futon would solve the problem immediately, and ensure that neither of them would wake up in the middle of the night freezing cold. Another unspoken agreement stated that once winter was over, they would bring down the other futon from where they had half-hazardly thrown it against the wall. It was the beginning of December of the following year, and the futon had yet to be taken down from where it had sunken to the floor in a defeated sigh sometime around April. }
Having been best friends in high school, Hinata and Kageyama were very much clear on what was okay and what wasn’t, when they decided to room together. Hinata was allowed to wear most of Kageyama’s clothes when it was a laundry day and they were too lazy to walk downstairs to the laundry room on the ground floor, and Kageyama could use Hinata’s shampoo when he was out of his own, etcetera.
Only,
Hinata could be constantly found wearing Kageyama’s socks, or a shirt if he was at home. He stole almost all his hats, and scarves. Kageyama stopped buying his own shampoo and started buying the brand Hinata always used, and kept only that in the shower. The lines of their own belongings began to blur, until neither of them were really sure what was theirs to begin with. They themselves started to blur and blur, so synced even now that they were off their Karasuno court, that it had started to get frightening.
Yachi had noticed it the first few times that she visited them, and had thought it to be remarkable, and relaying so to Kiyoko when she visited her next. It never seemed to be troublesome, or even bothersome, until she had all but been thrown onto that ratty, second-hand couch, waiting for the repairman that didn’t seem to be coming at all.
It had been fine, for the first few days. She was privy to their routine, and their schedules, and she found it interesting. What she didn’t find so interesting were their silent conversations, and the way they just felt so comfortable around each other. Hitoka understood that when you sync with someone on the court, it often times transfers to daily life, but honestly. This was getting ridiculous.
It was dinner time, and Hitoka was sitting at their small table, watching Kageyama and Hinata attempt to cook a meal, the pen in her hand that she was using to write a grocery list, tapping rhythmically against the soft pine of the table. She watched as they flowed in and out from getting a pot and ingredients for a try at cooking chicken noodle soup; one of them would accidently bump one another, which would cause the other to bump harder, which would then result in a fight of who could bump harder until Hinata would fall over, dragging Kageyama down with him, and Hitoka had to look away because she knew they would do this thing where they would stare harshly at each other, which turned into a staring competition and honestly, she couldn’t handle that sort of tension.
“Pass me the broth,” Kageyama asked, after their fight had somehow been resolved - by which means, Hitoka had no idea. Hinata opened up a few cupboards, only to find the broth on the highest shelf. Without missing a beat, he muttered, “Boost me,” and Kageyama moved from where he was tending to the stove with a barely audible sigh, to in front of Hinata, crouching slightly. Hinata then leapt onto his back, and made a grab for the broth, throwing it (Yachi swore he tried to spike it) onto the counter.
“Damn it, I missed!” Hinata cursed, sliding off Kageyama’s back, only to be flicked in the head with the broth packaging, as Kageyama opened it to dump the contents into the boiling water.
“You have to open the package before you try to spike it into the pot, you idiot.” Hinata only stuck his tongue out, and began to cut the vegetables. It is at this point that Yachi starts to worry. It’s not that she doesn’t trust Hinata with sharp instruments that can very much hurt people, but Hinata has been known…to not be…very - oh, he nicked himself with the blade.
Sticking his finger in his mouth, Hinata tried to continue cutting vegetables with only one hand. Yachi was already en route with the bandaids, but Hinata cut her off.
“It’s fine Yacchan, I’m not even bleeding that much.”
Yachi thrust the packet of bandaids into his hands, minding the cut. “Hinata! You cut yourself with a knife! What do you mean you’re not bleeding that much! If you don’t take care of it, it could get infected, and you’d have to get it amputated, and you’d never be able to play volleyball again!”
“Yachi, he’s going to be fine,” Kageyama assured, not taking his eyes off the boiling pot. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure he won’t die.”
Hinata stuck out his tongue. “What are you gonna do? Kiss it better?”
Kageyama spared a single glance at him. Hinata blanched.
“Oh no. No, I was just joking, you don’t have to actually-”
“Give me your hand.”
(“In marriage?!” Hitoka squeaked quietly.)
“No way!”
Glaring, Kageyama shot out his arm to reach for his friend’s hand, who was currently doing his best impersonation of a helicopter, flaying his arms all about. It was fairly convincing.
“I said give me your hand!”
“I was joking! I’m not going to give you my hand! It’s fine!”
“No it’s not!”
“Yes it is!”
“Give me-!” Kageyama grabbed a hold of the flailing arm. Hinata smacked him in the face.
“You little…”
(“Um…?” Yachi cowered, still not used to her friend’s glares, even though she knew he meant no harm. Usually. Most of the time.)
Using his other hand to wrap Hinata in a headlock, he managed to grab the bleeding hand, and press a quick kiss to the injured finger, ignoring Hinata’s screams of protest, and Yachi’s shrieks of worry.
“You fucking idiot! My finger’s still bleeding! You look like a serial killer with all that blood on your face!”
Releasing him from the headlock, Kageyama took some time to consider this. Hinata was right. He did kiss an open wound that was still bleeding. Huh.
“Kageyama…Hinata’s right. You do have blood on your face a little,” Yachi pointed out as calmly as she could, while looking at the blood as little as possible. She was already reaching for the medical pack to her right.
He reached up and touched his face, bringing his fingers down to inspect them. As expected, there was a bit of blood.
“Huh,” he said.
Seconds later: “Shit.”
“No kidding, asshole,” Hinata commented sharply, crossing his arms over his chest, once he let Yachi bandage his cut. “That was like, the gayest thing you’ve ever done.”
Kageyama rolled his eyes. “Oh please. We share a futon, for god’s sake.”
“It’s cold at night!” Hinata protested loudly.
“We haven’t taken the other futon down since like, last year.”
Hinata narrowed his eyes. “You like to cuddle.”
(Yachi could sense that there was another fight about to break out, and in all honesty, she wasn’t sure if the small, run-down kitchen could handle it.)
Kageyama flared. “So you do!”
“You spoon me every night!”
“You watch me sleep when you think I’m not looking!”
Gasping, Hinata narrowed his eyes, blazed for war. “You use my shampoo because you like the way it smells on me.”
“You wear my clothes because they smell like me and you. Like. It.”
“You wear my socks!”
“Yeah, because you’ve taken all of mine!”
Sputtering, Hinata realized he was running out of ammo. “Yeah, well! You nuzzle my hair when you think I’m asleep!
“You play with my hands! That’s really gay!”
“I can’t believe I’m having a gay competition with you right now!”
Kageyama smirked. “You’re just angry because I’m winning.”
Hinata started at him, in disbelief. “Winning at what? Being the most gay? Because then, yeah. You are. You’re like the biggest gay I know.”
“You would know, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes! Yes I would know!”
Yachi had absolutely no idea what was happening. She was also pretty sure neither of them quite knew what was happening, either. So she remained standing on the edge of the kitchenette, prepared for anything. And yet, she never was truly prepared for what happened next. In hindsight, she should have seen it coming.
Roaring in a quiet fury that only he knew how to do, Kageyama dealt what he thought was the final blow: “At least I never tried to kiss you on the mouth.”
The room went silent. Hinata and Kageyama both burst into embarrassed flushes. Yachi started dialling the local hospital, finger hovering over the call button, just in case there were any casualties.
Biting the inside of his cheek, Hinata steeled himself before he convicted the death sentence with a glare straight into his rival’s eyes: “You’re too afraid to try.”
He didn’t even have time to blink, before hands were grabbing at his head and there was a very blurry face way too close to his, and firm pressure on his lips. A second and a half later, he pushed Kageyama off of him and sank to the floor covering his face with his hands in utter mortification.
“Ohhhh my ggoooDDDD!!!” he wailed. Yachi had to grip the backrest of a chair to keep from collapsing herself.
Kageyama in turn, was bent over the countertop in embarrassment, his hands covering his own face, and was emitting groans of humiliation that were progressively getting loader by the second.
Nobody noticed the abandoned pot of boiling water, until the smoke alarm started to go off.
“SHIT!"
“Hey, did you-”
“Yes, I downloaded that movie you wanted to watch later,” Kageyama replied, the celery he was chopping seemingly more and more sloppy, until he just gave up and threw the rest into the pot. Once the fire alarm had been dismantled and promptly thrown in the trash, Yachi, with a complaining Hinata by her side, had suggested that perhaps they finish dinner.
“Sweet. What about-”
Kageyama sighed. “Yes, and I bought popcorn.”
Hinata whooped cheerfully, and continued stirring the pot. A moment passed, and then suddenly he stood straighter with realization. “Oh! That sock you wanted! It’s in the bottom drawer.”
Kageyama blinked. “Oh. Thank you. I was wondering where that was.”
Hinata grinned pleasantly in response.
“Hey, um,” Hitoka started hesitantly, breaking the pleasant trance of Volleyball Mindreading that was going on. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Oh no, Yacchan!” beamed Hinata. “We’re almost done. You’re still our guest, so you just relax and let us make dinner.”
How can I relax, Hitoka thought, when I don’t even know what’s going on. I feel like I’m missing a conversation. What if they’re talking about me!
“Goku has like, 10 stages, it’s incredible.”
“No he doesn’t, he only has two. Normal Goku, and Super Saiyan Goku”
“What are you talking about, he has like a bajillion! Super Saiya-jin 1, then Ultra Super Saiyan, Super Saiya-jin 2 to 4, then Oozaru, then Ougon Oozaru, and then Super Saiyajin 5 and 6! Duh!”
“…what?”
“Don’t even talk to me right now, how do you not know that? Everybody knows that.”
“Does Yachi know it?”
Hitoka blinked. “Do I know what now?”
Hinata whirled around to face her. “The stages of Goku’s transformations!”
Tapping her chin with an index finger, she replied, “Ah, I think there’s 10? It’s been a while, but I remember there being a lot.”
“See! Even Yachhan knows!!!”
Kageyama brushed Hinata off with a wave of a wooden spoon. “Yeah, yeah whatever. Not all of us watched Dragon-Ball Z obsessively when we were five.”
Hinata protested by making a face and gathering bowls from the cabinets. “I was seven. And I did not watch it obsessively.” Kageyama only snorted, as he poured the soup into the bowls that Hinata was handing him.
“Okay, whatever you say, Ultra Super Hinata.”
“It’s Ultra Super Saiyan Hinata!”
Yachi snorted, and Kageyama coughed to cover up his laughter, nearly tipping the bowls over.
A whisper in the dark: “Hey Kageyama…”
Grunting he rolled over on the futon towards Hinata, grimacing at the sound of the train passing loudly near their apartment. Focusing too much on how much of an annoyance it was, he didn’t notice how he tangled himself in the 7 blankets, one foot sticking out and the other somewhere by Hinata’s legs.
“Oh my god you nerd, let me help you,” Hinata scoffed fondly, and tugged the expansion of their blankets a little forward, so they untangled around Kageyama’s legs. The setter grumbled a thank you, and once they were both settled back on the futon facing each other, he replied to Hinata’s earlier beckon: “What.”
Hinata scrunched his eyebrows together in confusion. “What?”
“You called my name.”
“Oh! Right!” he smiled, bashfully. “…remember how earlier…in the kitchen, when we were having that argument?”
Kageyama rolled his eyes, hair splayed across his pillow. “How could I forget? Yachi looked like she wanted to pass out from fear that we were going to murder each other.”
Snorting, Hinata had to agree. “But…” he averted his eyes, instead staring at the shadows the streetlights made on their walls. “Remember how you kissed me? Even though it was awful and lasted like a negative second.”
“There’s no such thing as a negative second, you dumbass.”
“Shut up that’s not the point.”
Kageyama sighed. “Yeah, I remember. Why?”
“Did you….um….”
“Did I what?”
“Shut up and let me finish! What I was going to say, before I was so rudely interrupted!” Kageyama rolled his eyes at this. “Was if you….I dunno…wanted to….try again?”
Hinata tensed up his face, waiting for impact. Kageyama only blinked in confusion.
“What?”
Hinata deadpanned, all hope for his friend utterly lost and destroyed. “What do you mean, what. I was asking if you wanted to try it again.” A small blush started to work its way up his neck and up to his ears.
“Try what again,” Kageyama repeated. “…kissing?”
“Why did you whisper that?”
“Why are you whispering now?”
“Look. Did you want to, or not. It’s not that hard of a decision.”
Rolling his eyes for what seemed like the umpteenth time that night, Kageyama decided to be the bigger person (literally), and climbed on top of Hinata.
“What. Are you doing.”
“I’m,” Kageyama confirmed, “being the bigger person.”
“No, you’re being an asshole.”
“Look. I’m going to kiss you, ok?!”
Hinata looked up to the ceiling as if it held all the answers. “Fucking finally. I thought you were going to dance around my question all night.”
Kageyama glared at him, but lowered his face regardless until he was inches away, ignoring the way his neck and ears burned. He took once glance at Hinata’s face in the moonlight, with his eyes shining with the reflections of the streetlights and their digital clock; it was the way he was looking up at him so intensely, and yet….fondly, that he knew it was Game Over.
His face was absolutely burning at this point, body stiff with adrenaline, hyperaware of how Hinata was looking at him with the same amount of affection mixed with deer-in-the-headlights. He realized he couldn’t do it. He was frozen, embarrassed, and scared.
No, he would do it.
“I’m doing to do it,” he declared.
Hinata nodded stiffly in reply.
Kageyama took a steady breath, closed his eyes, told himself that he had already done the worst, so really what was there to be afraid of, and leaned forward until his lips hit something that he was pretty sure wasn’t another set of lips.
“That,” Hinata whispered, “is my nose.”
Kageyama tried again.
“That’s my chin! Why do you keep trying when your eyes are closed? Oh my god let me just-”
A rustle of bedsheets, and a few moments later, had Kageyama whispering “Ah,” in understanding.
“Those, are my lips,” Hinata whispered back, adjusting his hold on his roommate’s head.
They stared at the other silently, the sounds of leaves, and passing cars, forgotten in their shared moment. A cat yelped loudly in the distance, and Hinata stifled a giggle, which in turn made Kageyama crack a smile, and soon they were a tangle of laughing limbs.
“That cat sounded like Yaku when Lev tries to pick him up,” Hinata guffawed, burying his face in a pillow to keep from laughing too loudly.
Kageyama slapped a hand over his mouth, his body shaking with laughter. “Oh my god, you’re right.”
Hinata burst into another fit of laughter, Kageyama trying to shush him with a pillow through his own snorts.
{Yachi was tucked onto the ratty old couch, staring up at the ceiling, contemplating why the universe hated her. It was 3:36am. She had work tomorrow. Kageyama and Hinata never stopped being loud until at least 4am. She had 24 minutes to go. She could do this. The alarm on her phone that was set to 6am for her 8am shift at the bookstore said otherwise. She really needed to call a new repairman for her furnace. This was getting out of hand.}