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It builds up, with an accelerating taunting sort of tick, kind of like the clock in their library all shitty and worn out, waiting for the day it tires itself out.
Hinata calls it ancient, he thinks offhandedly. Tsukishima calls it annoying, and a stab to his brain when he’s trying to concentrate, but everything annoys that asshole, so he chooses to not care, and not take it to heart or whatever, just because he–
He ticks, like the shitty old clock in their library, and then he— he doesn’t blow up.
It isn’t one of those sort of blow ups, or whatever, where he yells and fights.
Because Kageyama’s literally known for yelling, this is a different kind of fall where it builds, and builds, and then he goes home.
It’s less of— he’s a ticking time bomb ready to explode.
And more like— he can feel his heart wavering, like any minute his ribs might collapse and take his heart right down with them.
It’s more like he’s chipping away at himself bit by bit, even if things are supposed to be fine, because they are fine. He is fine
He isn’t in middle school, and maybe his grandpa is still gone but he’s okay he’s handling it a lot better now.
Sometimes anyway.
Sometimes he still ticks and feels whatever’s left of himself flickering away so he’ll go home.
Say fuck it to his homework and anything else needs to do, slump into bed, pulls his blankets all the way up, and just ache and cry–
because he’s sixteen and he feels like it.
He’s too much in all the wrong places, and too little in any of the right places. He isn’t giving enough and he’s giving too much.
He can give all he can— all he has— and it won’t be enough. And it might not be middle school but it fucking feels like it.
He feels fourteen.
Fourteen and fucking stupid, fourteen and sick of himself, wondering where the hell he went wrong and why he’s so difficult to be around, why everyone hates him.
He’s sixteen and still fucking stupid.
So sometimes he doesn’t feel like anything’s changed at all. And yet they obviously have because he has a team that puts up with him.
And by some happy accident, he has a boyfriend too.
Which is different. Very different.
Said boyfriend is looking at Kageyama with concern and he feels one step closer to crying than he usually is on these days.
Which is decidedly bad.
Because Hinata doesn’t know about- about this, no one’s knows about this. And no one’s ever noticed it before.
Not that there’d been many people around to notice. Or people who would’ve even cared to but still, no one’s noticed before.
“You okay?” He’s tugging at his bottom lip, tilting his head, peering up at Kageyama with more care in his eyes than Kageyama’s ever known what to do with. He nods, tersely.
“You sure?” Kageyama hesitates.
He hesitates because Hinata likes the Kageyama that sends him sets and gives him someone to chase.
He likes the Kageyama everyone sees at school.
He likes him the same way people in the hallway might glance at him and think he’s ‘cool’.
Those people don’t really know him. They don’t Tobio. Tobio, who stays up late on accident sometimes binge watching anime.
Tobio who listens to music at home when he’s cleaning because sometimes the empty silence at home is too much.
Tobio who lost his grandpa and hasn’t been the same ever since.
Kageyama, on the other hand, doesn't care what anyone else thinks, Kageyama doesn’t feel rotten inside like he might snuff out anything he touches. He likes Kageyama.
But, he thinks timidly, he likes Kageyama who sometimes a lot of the time yells, and managed to drive anyone that ever might’ve cared away.
So, maybe he can- maybe he should- He shrugs.
If he ever gets the words out.
They’re walking home, side by side, and Hinata’s intersection is coming up soon, so if he wants to say something or do something it’s now or never.
“Will- will you come over?”
“Really,” Hinata questions startled, already traces of a smile beginning to form on his face.
“Yeah, I mean-,” regret washes over him, what is he thinking, you’re supposed to be good company when you invite someone over, not that Tobio ever feels like good company.
“Yeah,” he finishes lamely, biting at his lip.
“Okay! Yeah sure.”
Hinata shoots him a crooked grins at him, and he feels any gruffness he had before soften.
He feels too soft around Hinata sometimes like he’s too pulled apart at the seams. Like any minute he might just fall right open and Hinata’s not gonna like what he sees.
“Any reason why?”
‘I’m sad’ sounded pathetic in Kageyama’s opinion, and honesty hardly ever got him anywhere, anyways.
Honesty got him looks, looks that said shut up and i hate you because those he can read clearly. Those he has become used to.
Honesty will not go well, he thinks sullenly because he is hopeless inside. And takes the kind of effort that nobody should ever put up with.
He’s rotten.
Rotten kind of work that drives people away.
He shrugs. Hopeless, rotten work.
“Cause you’ve been quiet all day.”
Kageyama gives him a look that Hinata doesn’t understand.
Which is weird because Hinata’s likes to think he knows his boyfriend pretty well. He’s gotten used to reading between the lines with Kageyama, but this isn’t a look he’s ever seen before.
And now that he thinks about it, it’s kind of been there all day.
“Okay maybe not literally but like-” he frowns, unsure.
Maybe quiet wasn’t the right word, Kageyama wasn’t any more quiet physically than usual, because despite popular belief Hinata wholeheartedly believes Kageyama is quiet.
Sure maybe not when he’s playing volleyball, but to anyone who looks like Hinata does, because he likes Kageyama a lot, a whole lot, they’d notice that Kageyama’s quiet, quieter than Yamaguchi who’s pretty shy himself in the hallways.
Kageyama only ever talks when spoken to, like he’s afraid he might say the wrong thing or something.
Occasionally, Kageyama will get this look on his face like he wants to say something, but he freezes and backpedals, closing himself off like whatever he wanted to say was so incredibly stupid it was pointless to even voice it.
Which is ridiculous because stupid or not Hinata would give a lot to know what goes on inside his boyfriend’s head when it isn’t thinking of volleyball.
And Hinata wants to fight whoever or whatever made Kageyama shut himself up like that.
He’d asked once, on the way home, what Kageyama thought about when he wasn’t thinking about volleyball.
Kageyama had gotten this pinched wary sort look on his face for a second like Hinata wouldn’t like his answer for some reason.
“Mostly food I guess, or whatever I need to do when I get home, and– I guess mainly y-you.”
He’d blushed at that last part stammering it out more than anything.
Kageyama really was the best, and sweet too not that anyone believed Hinata when he said that.
If Hinata had to guess he’d say, Kageyama had been more in his head. Not in a zoned out way, but in the way that what he used to think was a bored-ish look on his face, wasn’t on for show, like it usually seemed to be.
And Hinata knows this, because one time he complained on the way to class all about how his eraser wasn’t usable anymore because Natsu spilled liquid glue on it after using it for one of her sticky gluey contraptions, and now it was all glittery and pink.
And the next day Kageyama dropped a pack of erasers on his desk before walking off.
He really was sweet like that.
He just looked bored-ish usually, it was probably as neutral as Kageyama got, but today he actually seemed to not be paying attention.
Like he was stuck in his head.
Kageyama was acting kind of and well- shy wasn’t the word, but maybe more like timid, and small.
Which to anyone else might be surprising, but Hinata was Kgaeyama’s boyfriend now, and he’d seen all kinds of Kageyamas.
The sweet Kageyama who listened and brought him erasers him, and reached for Hinata’s hand almost constantly because he knew Hinata himself was shy about reaching for it.
He’d seen Kageyama tired, not in a 4 sets of volleyball type of way but in a lying in his lap and looking stupidly adorable, sort of way.
He’d seen Kageyama, that got all flustered, after Hinata offhandedly mentions he’s his favorite person, and that he wouldn’t want anyone else to set to him, even if it meant a bigger stage.
Kageyama got really flustered after that last one, he was frozen for a good ten seconds before he snapped out of it and told Hinata he was the biggest idiot he knew.
But that was Kageyama speak for, me too, now shut it and quit making me blush before I do something about it myself, so Hinata laughed and just grinned when Kageyama stuck his hand out while rolling his eyes, and Hinata had seen the smile tugging at the corner of his lips.
Kageyama seemed to reserve most of his smiles for him anyway, so Hinata made it a personal goal to remember all of them.
He’d seen Kageyama angry of course, yelling and all, but he’d also seen him really angry, pissed even, fuming and tensing in on himself like he’d break something if he touched it.
He seemed more angry at himself than anyone else those days.
Kageyama usually liked to sit outside alone when that happened, walk it off sort of, and Hinata usually gave him his space until he felt like he was ready for company again or just to be stupid together again.
Hinata liked to think he knew all about Kageyama’s different sides.
At least he’d hope so anyway.
He’s Kageyama’s boyfriend after all, something he thinks he will forever revel in.
It wasn’t the first time he’d seen Kageyama all ‘quiet’ but it was the first time since they’d started dating.
He’d noticed it before but chalked it up to Kageyama actually bored or if anything annoyed.
Now he knew better, and that Kageyama usually felt whatever his eyes were telling you, not the rest of his face and he couldn’t help but wonder what was going through his head on those days.
He could ask now after all too, before they started dating Hinata was his teammate , now he’s his boyfriend and that means he’s special, and Kageyama’s favorite person too.
“I guess you’ve just been less–,” if he said alert Kageyama might think he meant in volleyball, which just wasn’t the case, “sure of yourself today maybe, not in volleyball or anything, just like in class and in the halls, and at lunch. I mean you usually only look bored and like you aren’t listening to anyone else, but today you actually weren’t. You were kinda spacey I guess,” he finishes off more quietly than he started.
“Oh.”
He mumbles weakly. Had he missed something important Hinata had said, he think's kicking himself internally.
Before realizing kind of densely, Hinata had noticed.
He feels stupid for getting happy at the admittance, but it’s something else to have someone to walk home with, and eat lunch with, or stand next to in halls and linger with.
To be in class and asked to partner up, and have Hinata just look at him like it’s obvious that he wouldn’t ever settle for anyone else if he had the choice.
It beats eating lunch in the dingy hidden stairwells, and awkwardly looking from one stranger to the next to see who’d end up stuck with him, for an assignment, tenfold.
And having someone, to ask about his day or if he’s ok, let alone care about him, is just making Kageyama wanna cry in a good way.
In a daze he looks back up at Hinata who’s staring unsure between the street intersection.
Right, Hinata’s never been to his house.
“It’s the next one,” he says, gesturing to the street up ahead.
“Huh, a lot closer than my house,” he says under his breath as if thinking out loud.
“Mhm,” he offers back quietly.
The walk from there isn’t long, his house being one of the closer ones, rather than being at the end of the road.
He pauses nervously, glancing over at Hinata who’s staring at his house with dumbfound curiosity. He briefly wonders if he made his bed, before thinking, probably not.
He walks up the sidewalk, hearing Hinata following behind him, before blinking, blatantly realizing he needs to pull out his keys, which he usually does after parting with Hinata at the interaction.
Feeling dumb, he reaches into his bag, digging them out from the separate inner pocket, before turning to the door and unlocking it.
“You can leave your shoes right here,” he says referring to the genkan, taking his shoes off, watching Hinata do the same, gesturing for him to follow with the a nod.
He makes his way down the hallway, opening his door on the right, glancing at the other boy out of the corner of his eyes, seeing him glimpse at the other two doors before facing towards him.
His bed is unmade, like he figured, he drops his bag against the wall.
“Are you hungry?” He asks, trying to be good, well– decent company.
He realizes if he were alone, he probably would’ve collapsed onto his bed, called it a day, and said fuck eating.
And Kageyama loves food, that’s how you know he’s sad.
“Yeah starving almost, are you an only child?” Hinata slaps his hands over his mouth immediately.
“Sorry, sorry that sounded rude, I didn’t mean to- I was just wondering if-”
Part of Kageyama wants to laugh, because Hinata is still Hinata with his lack of impulse control, and Kageyama although he’ll grumble about him using his brain before he speaks because if Kageyama’s rude intentionally, Hinata’s rude unintentionally.
And blurts out exactly what he’s thinking more often than not, something Kageyama likes about him more than he could say.
The other part of him is nervous, and wondering how long he can put off the tug in his throat, and knot in his lungs.
“No. I’m not.”
“Oh,” he gapes back at him.
He walks to the kitchen, beelining it to the fridge. Huh, he forgot he had leftover curry.
“I have a sister, she’s older and lives in the city for school. I have leftover curry?”
“Makes sense.”
“The curry?” He asks more to say something than anything.
“What, no well- yes that too, you love curry, but I meant the older sister thing. You just seem like a younger sibling I think if that makes sense.”
The other boy only shrugs to that.
Dinner is filled with mutual complaints of history homework, Kageyama didn’t know they had.
They’re sitting in Kageyama’s room, which is mostly bare aside from what seems to be the essentials.
Kageyama’s sitting on the edge of the bed tugging on the sheets beneath him with his fingers while he’s in the chair by the desk when Hinata works up the courage to ask, “so it’s just you, who lives here then?”
He expects multiple reactions, for Kageyama to close up, get angry, defensive, or even just unbothered. And while he does tense up, what he was not expecting was the sharp flash of pain that flickers across Kageyama’s face before he answers.
Hinata’s never, and he means never, seen Kageyama make that sort of face.
It’s nothing like when the occasional stray volleyball, hitting hard enough to leave a mark, where he usually scrunches up his nose in discomfort, and a mix of mild irritation, and annoyance rather than any actual pain, like he’s more pissed than hurt.
This is so different.
Kageyama looks off to the side with unease, his eyes glossing over more than they have all day, and Hinata absentmindedly thinks about how he thought they’d looked shiny but wrote it off for how whipped he is. He really is an idiot sometimes.
“Yeah… it’s just– it’s just me. ”
Hinata regrets asking.
Not because he doesn’t wanna know, or he’s uncomfortable or anything but because he’d do almost literally anything to get that look off Kageyama’s face.
The face that he put there, “hey I’m sorry I didn’t mean to pry, I-”
Kageyama looks up just in time for him to make out the tears that stream down his face, gone just as quickly as they fell when the blue eyed boy wipes them abruptly. “it’s fine–”
“You’re crying, it’s not ok. I didn’t mean to-”
“I would’ve cried today anyway, it's not your fault.”
Hinata wavers stunned.
“What do you mean you would’ve cried today anyway,” he repeats back slowly.
“I-”
“Earlier... you asked, if i was- okay, and that’d I’d been quiet, and...“
“...spacey yeah.” He cuts in briefly when Kageyama doesn’t finish for a while.
“I’m not. I wasn’t– I pretty much planned on going home and crying anyway,” Hinata wishes he’d known so much sooner that the look on his face today meant that Kageyama was sad.
“But you- you asked so I thought that if- that maybe if I told you to come over- that it might help- or- you asked if I was ok. So I- you asked.”
Kageyama repeats like- almost like- any minute Hinata’s going to regret it and walk out and maybe never come back.
And with what he’s filled in the blanks about Kageyama’s track record of people, Hinata suddenly kind of gets where this is coming from.
Kageyama once told him something in a rare, very rare moment of truth, on the edge of sleep at one of their training camps, so very tired he isn’t even sure if Kageyama remembers it.
They’d been worked to the bone that day, and everyone was exhausted even he felt like just laying on the floor after the day was over.
Everyone had been asleep having long ago passed out, except them two, Hinata because while his body was tired, his mind was awake, and Kageyama because he liked Hinata enough to entertain Hinata’s wide awake brain for a few minutes.
Hinata likes him so much.
Kageyama had been on the brink of sleep curled on his side, face half smushed into the pillow, looked up at Hinata with nothing but what his mom described to him as fondness and said, “you remember when you yelled ‘I’m here’, on the day of the first practice match?”
”Yeah of course.”
“That meant so much more to me than I think you know.”
“How come?” he’d asked back quietly.
“...dunno ‘cause sometimes... sometimes m’not scared of you leaving.”
Hinata hadn’t really known what to make of it at the time even though they’d been dating already and he had more or less considered it a volleyball thing.
He figured Kageyama meant on court, and that he wasn’t scared of Hinata letting one set go to waste, that with Hinata on the courts there’d never be a repeat of that day, for Kageyama.
Now he knew better. Hinata wasn’t leaving and he was going to make sure Kageyama knew that, on or off the court.
“I did,” he says with as much conviction as he could, “You’re right I asked because I want to know. That’s why I asked, because—”
He’s staying.
He’s here and he will be for as long as he can, for as long as Kageyama wants him around.
Hinata really hopes that’s forever.
“I’m here and I’m not leaving, because I want to know what’s wrong, I want to see everything.”
Kageyama’s mouth wavers a little like it does when he’s not sure how to smile comfortably sometimes, that again, Hinata wants to fight whatever did that, before he lets out what Hinata can only call a sob.
And for a minute Hinata feels like he messed up, and made things worse, and said something he shouldn’t have.
But then Kageyama reaches for him hesitant like he’s not sure if he’s allowed, which is so beyond ridiculous, Hinata launches up from his chair by the desk and tugs Kageyama close like just maybe it might keep all the bad thoughts away.
Kageyama’s sitting, while Hinata’s standing between his legs, so he’s tall enough in this position to rest his head over Kageyama’s, which is admittedly usually the other way around.
Hinata thinks it’s a nice change of pace if only it hadn’t come from this.
He pulls him closer if possible and rests one of his hands on his back steady, while the other threads itself into the back of Kageyama’s head which he has spent more times than he can probably count staring at.
“What- what is it, what can I do? I wanna help.”
Kageyama’s back tenses up from beneath his hand before he hears another broken sort of sob, which is so very wrong.
Hinata thinks he’d handle watching puppies cry better, he never thought he’d see Kageyama like this maybe that’s where he went wrong.
“I- I don’t. I’m not- good. I don’t- I don’t want you to get sick of me- I want you to stay-“
“I am, I'll always stay.”
“Just- stay.”
“I’m staying. Why wouldn’t I stay? What makes you think I wouldn’t stay?” He moves his head off of Kageyama’s and pulls back to look at him, his hands moving up to cradle his face.
Kageyama inhales shakily, eyes darting down, there’s solid tear tracks and tears still streaming down his face when he answers in a sad sort of whisper, “ I’m too - I’m too much and I’m stupid— there isn’t– I’m not good at- I’m not good for anything except–“
“Kageyama. You’re so much more than- You’re not too much and even if you are- then I’m too much too, and that’s why we fit, we always fit and it’s– it’s just more of you for me to like. And- and maybe you’re stupid but I’m stupid too, we’ve always been stupid together, I mean remember that time in home ec, when I almost blew up the microwave or whatever–“
Kageyama scoffs, still teary eyed but Hinata will take it.
“–well I think you’re smart in other ways, because there was that time when we were in class folding cards and you did yours in the first try? Yeah well I think you’re smart about the things that are important to you, and I don’t care what anyone else says, because I’d rather be dumb and with you- then- smart- and without you. And as for- volleyball- I think...” he trails off slowly, wondering if what he’s about to say is too much.
“I think you could never play volleyball again... and I’d still wanna be your boyfriend. And I mean sure of course I’d miss it. I’d miss playing with you so much, but- you’re my boyfriend not because you’re amazing at volleyball because you are and a lot of people know that, but because I love you. Get that through your thick head okay? You’re my boyfriend because I love you. That’s not going to change because you feel not okay or something I- if you’re sad I want you to come to me. I want to make you feel better. I want to hear you say stupid things and laugh about it together- I don’t want you to ever feel like I’m going to leave you because of something you say, I won’t I’m not leaving no matter what stupid things your brain might tell you, is that- is that okay?”
Kageyama feels his eyes blur up and then there are more tears making their way down his face and he scrubs at them once to see before he pulls Hinata down with all his weight, against him so that they’re hugging, and he’s sitting on his lap.
“It’s. It’s more than okay,” he whispers.
“Yeah?”
“Mhm,” he says into Hinata’s hair.
“I-,” he pulls back from the hug eyes automatically looking away before forcing himself to look up and straight at his boyfriend, “I love you too.”
Hinata gives him one of his smaller smiles, that Kageyama has always shyly liked to think are more for him than anything, because Hinata will smile at anyone all big and bright but it’s Kageyama who he’ll slow down with and take a minute to just look at and give him one of his more softer, smaller smiles.
“You dummy, you’re never getting rid of me. Not if I can’t help it. I love you.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
Later when he feels more up for it, he’ll tell Hinata about Kazuyo, about the empty rooms in the house, and the useless chairs at the kitchen table, and even later when they’re laying down and he’s tucked under Hinata’s chin, he’ll tell him about Tobio and how he thinks he might be rotten work to take care of.
“It’ll be rotten work, taking care of me.”
And Hinata says, “not to me, not if it’s you.”
And he believes it.