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Hinata wakes up with a terrible crick in his neck.
He cracks his eyes open blearily, and his headache introduces itself by stabbing the backs of his eyelids, a reminder that last night, as of right now, remains blurry. He’ll sift through his memories later, when his head isn’t trying to kill him, and he squeezes his eyes shut to hopefully postpone his inevitable agonizing hangover recovery day.
Dear God, he thinks, burrowing his face into his pillow and inhaling the scent of sandalwood and rain, if you get rid of this hangover right now, I will never drink again.
A bold-faced lie, sure, but he’s willing to bargain if it means feeling a little better. With a loud sigh, Hinata resigns himself to a day of loud complaining and enough greasy takeout to kill a small child. He picks up his phone and squints at the screen, pinching his nose when the sudden brightness punches him in the face.
He has a surprising amount of texts, and each one of them is more vague and alarming than the last. There’s one from Yamaguchi, congratulating him on the win and apologizing for not being able to attend. Another one is from Bokuto, which is a lot of emojis, including but not limited to seven smirking ones, four eggplants, one celebratory face, and one last smirking one for good measure.
Contrary to popular belief, Hinata has a little bit of common sense—at least, when it comes to deciphering the poorly hidden meaning behind emojis. Bokuto might as well have held up a giant neon sign that says “HOPE YOU GOT LAID”.
The next message is from Oikawa, which is basically just laughing in his face about how “I’ve never seen bedroom eyes that intense in a match in years!”.
Oh, no.
No, no, no—no way.
Maybe he’s overthinking things. After all, he was told not to jump to conclusions, right? The electric tension on the court yesterday refusing to fizzle out even long after the match was surely a coincidence, right?
I did not have sex with Kageyama, he tells himself, chanting it over and over in his head like a mantra. Just because he got insanely drunk with both the Jackals and the Adlers doesn’t mean anything happened.
I did not have sex with Kageyama.
He fuzzily remembers outdrinking almost every single player in the room, with Kageyama only remaining out of pure stubbornness, an aching nostalgia for times long gone.
I did not have sex with Kageyama.
Vague memories of leaning into someone’s warmth and stumbling back to his apartment flash through his mind, paired with loud arguing like they’d never spent any time apart. He remembers feeling warm, warm, warm, and then as soon as they entered his apartment, the fond warmth turned into blazing heat.
I did not have sex with Kageyama.
Unlike on the court, there was nothing in the way of the tension, any awkwardness blocked behind several, several shots of disgusting, clear liquid (he vaguely remembers Bokuto crawling behind the bar and shouting something about his ‘special brew’).
He thinks about lips on his own, clumsy and reverent and shockingly gentle, and his face flames. Fine, so what if he kissed Kageyama once or twice or a hundred times? That doesn’t necessarily mean they did anything!
The final nail in the coffin arrives as a text message from none other than one of the Sendai Frogs’ starting middle blockers himself, Tsukishima Kei. It’s just an image of a dog side-eyeing the camera next to a glass of wine, but Hinata can feel the waves of smug mockery ebbing from his phone.
“Oh my god,” he says out loud, both hands pressed against his face, “I had sex with Kageyama.”
His hangover is still too painful to properly go through the details (truthfully, though, he doesn’t really want to go through the details until his headache goes down and he has the energy to bite into a pillow and—lord, forgive him), but maybe if he just remembered a little more—
“Oi, dumbass!”
He stiffens. Even though it’d been years since he’d last heard it, he could recognize that irritated bark from a mile away.
He’s a little confused as to why Kageyama sounds so angry, though. Was last night bad? Did Hinata do something he shouldn’t have? All his fuzzy memories are full of nothing but pleasure, so he doesn’t entirely understand why he sounds this mad.
“Hinata!” Kageyama roars from the bathroom. “I know you’re awake, dumbass, get over here!”
Ah, now he understands—Kageyama is probably just too stupid to properly work his shower. Hinata snickers to himself at the idea of his old volleyball partner hopping from one foot to the other as he tries to press all the funny little buttons.
Getting out of bed feels like a mammoth task, especially when his stomach lurches dangerously and stars appear in his vision, but he eventually pads over to the bathroom, amusement temporarily overtaking his anxiety at sleeping with Kageyama Tobio.
“Bakageyama can’t even turn on the shower,” Hinata singsongs, swinging open the bathroom door, “It’s a miracle you managed to—waugh!”
Kageyama looking beautiful is an irrefutable fact, so he won’t spend too much time ogling his lean, chiseled muscle, or his perfectly sculpted face, or the way water droplets travel down his torso in tempting rivulets (he has the insane, borderline primal urge to lick them, and has to yell at himself to get a grip).
The sky is blue, the grass is green, Kageyama Tobio is beautiful—read: irrefutable facts. It’s just how he is, he’s been beautiful ever since high school and Hinata developed a schoolgirl crush on the boy that lasted… well, he supposes it never really went away, did it?
Kageyama Tobio is beautiful, and he is also completely covered in animalistic marks.
Hinata’s eyes feel like they’re about to bulge out of his head. Bright purple hickeys litter his neck, his collarbone, his chest, and, even though he’s clad in a pair of black sweatpants, Hinata can hazard a guess that his delicious thighs are in the same state.
“Did—” Hinata points to himself, slack-jawed, “Did I do that?”
Really, it’s a rhetorical question, and the look on his former classmate’s face says what do you think, moron?
The tips of Kageyama’s ears turn the prettiest pink color. It contrasts against his skin beautifully, and Hinata wrestles his horny demon back into its cage where it belongs. Lust has no place in the house of rationality.
“I look like I’ve been mauled,” Kageyama snarls. “And do you always walk around your apartment with your dick hanging out?”
Hinata metaphorically pats his last night self on the back for wreaking such havoc on the setter’s body. He glances down at his lower body and—oh, yeah, he’s definitely naked right now.
“Sometimes,” he lies, just to see Kageyama’s blush extend to his cheeks.
“You’re the worst,” Kageyama hisses, storming past him and into the hallway.
“That’s not what you were saying last night!” Hinata calls cheerfully, and the ensuing roar of outrage feels like coming home.
He decides to throw on a pair of shorts before walking into the kitchen. This time, it’s his turn to blush, as memories of shoving Kageyama’s back against the cabinets flood his mind. Either the ibuprofen he just took is working overtime, or this hangover is slowly ebbing away, because his mind is currently being assaulted with very graphic (although not unwanted) flashbacks to last night.
As Kageyama busies himself with grumbles of stupid, useless Hinata and still making breakfast even though my ass hurts like hell, the proverbial lightbulb goes off in his head with a loud shout of “eureka!”.
“Woah,” he says, standing up so he can get a good eyeful of the shirtless wonder in his kitchen, “We had sex—”
“Obviously,” Kageyama grits out, although there’s something vulnerable flashing behind this eyes that Hinata will most certainly unpack after he confirms his suspicions.
“Kageyama, you—you bottomed!”
It sounds more accusatory than he meant it to, and Kageyama’s entire face has gone a splotchy crimson, but Hinata is absolutely delighted by this revelation. Then, the cogs in his head turn a few more times, and he lets out a loud squeak of horror.
“Wait!” He stands on his tiptoes, grabs the setter’s shoulders, and whirls him around so they’re face to face. “You—I—sit down!”
Hinata pretends like he isn’t impressed by his own strength as he shoves Kageyama into a chair at the tiny kitchen table, while Kageyama stares at him with an unreadable expression.
Standing above someone so much taller than him sends a shiver running down his spine, and he has half a mind to crawl into his lap and mar even more of his skin.
Go away, he mentally shouts at his dick, stop being distracting and let me make breakfast!
“Sorry,” he admits quietly after a few minutes of awkward silence, “I… I’m only just now remembering everything from last night.”
Kageyama tilts his head as Hinata busies himself with brewing a pot of coffee. “Why are you sorry?”
Hinata pauses. There’s something searching in Kageyama’s tone, and he feels almost like he’s being interrogated right now. “Well, I was being a terrible host, so I thought I’d apologize.”
He must have answered correctly, because Kageyama sinks back into his chair with something akin to relief. His fingers are shaking, Hinata realizes belatedly, eyes trained on the long, calloused hands, perfect for setting.
“Woah, hey,” he frowns, abandoning his eggs to stand in front of Kageyama’s chair, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Kageyama shoves his hands in his pockets. Idiot.
Hinata clicks his tongue. Loathe as he is to admit it, he guesses someone has to be the mature one in this conversation. In the years he’s spent since high school, he’s learned to perfectly balance the line between his childish joy and the weathered maturity of adulthood, but there’s something about Kageyama’s presence that sends him careening back into old, act-before-thinking habits.
“Bakageyama,” he scolds fondly, letting his fingers wander into damp, silky hair, “You’re still a terrible liar.”
Kageyama doesn’t respond, instead choosing to lean into Hinata’s hand in an almost cat-like gesture. His dark blue eyes are full of something fond and frightened, and even though he’s taller and more muscular and generally scarier, he’s never looked more vulnerable in his life.
Now that the tension between them has snapped, after years of festering, it parts the clouds to reveal something tiny and flickering, something raw and beautiful. Hinata threads his fingers through inky black tendrils and smiles softly.
He supposes they were both idiots in high school. He covered his feelings with loud, boisterous yelling, bouncing from place to place and running so fast that his feelings couldn’t possibly catch up, while Kageyama shielded himself with cold glares and stilted rage and powerful, pinpoint accurate sets.
Kageyama probably hasn’t done as much soul-searching as himself, though, knowing… well, knowing how he is. It’s alright, though, Hinata can be the mature one, because he has a sneaking suspicion that perhaps, if they weren’t so stupid in high school, last night could have come a lot earlier (pun sort of intended).
“Kageyama,” he turns his voice into a whisper, hands never leaving his hair even as he slowly settles into his lap.
His blush, combined with the marks bruising his skin, create a work of modern art. I’ll worship you, Hinata thinks, fingers slipping from hair to cheek, thumb swirling in hypnotic circles, if you let me.
“Hinata,” Kageyama breathes, lips obediently falling open as Hinata brushes a thumb against them, “I know we were drunk, and probably high off adrenaline, but I—”
His words break off into a quiet groan as Hinata presses his finger into a mark on his neck. “Stop, hah, stop distracting me, dumbass, I’m trying to tell you something.”
“Sorry,” Hinata murmurs, absolutely not sorry at all.
He feels like he’s been given the prized cornucopia, an endless flood of Kageyama, Kageyama, Kageyama, everything he starved himself of over the years suddenly presented to him on a silver platter.
“I don’t regret it,” Kageyama says, tilting his head as Hinata mouths at his neck, gentler than last night, fleeting brushes of lips and tongue, “I’ll never regret it, no matter what happens.”
Hinata hums in acknowledgement, giddy bubbles threatening to burst out of his chest. He grins into the sculpted flesh of his statue, his place of worship, his moon and grounding rock. “Funny,” he says, nipping at the lobe of Kageyama’s furiously heated ear, “I was just about to say the same thing.”
He most definitely was not—most likely, he would have said something stupidly cheesy and corny, and then gotten headbutted by an angry setter, but he might as well pretend.
“Who are you and what did you do with Hinata?” Kageyama asks, bewildered and dazed at the same time. “What happened to the stuttering mess from fifteen minutes ago?”
Hinata snickers into the setter’s collarbone. “He’s been overtaken by his evil lusty alter ego. Give it ten minutes and I’ll come back with a black wig and fishnets.”
Kageyama’s ensuing moan is quickly disguised as a snort, but Hinata makes sure to file that information for later—well, maybe not the wig. That’d be a little ridiculous.
“You’re ridiculous,” he whispers, like some sort of freakish mind reader, “You’re so ridiculous, and I’m in love with you.”
Hinata, whose left hand is currently not-so-subtly trying to snake its way down to Kageyama’s ass, stops short. His brain, which had been decidedly lust-addled for the past few minutes, completely short circuits.
Sure, he had a suspicion that his feelings had been reciprocated, but having a hunch and actually hearing the words are two very, very different things.
“You jerk!” he shrieks, squeezing Kageyama’s ass with a vindicative glare. “You can’t—you can’t just say that while I’m groping you!”
“I can,” Kageyama replies smugly, and Hinata is brought back to flip phones and training camp and gentle breezes and resigning himself to a life without the one thing he wants more than anything, “And I did.”
Hinata can’t help it—he laughs. He laughs, and laughs, and laughs, and he lets his eggs burn on the stove because fuck those stupid eggs, Kageyama is in love with him, and before he can even think to process what this could mean for their future, he captures his lips in a kiss. It’s a thousand times gentler than the hungry pants from last night, and yet just as breathtaking.
It’s sweet and gentle, and Hinata absently runs his hands along the marks as a quiet apology. He breaks their mouths apart with a wet noise, and he drinks in the satisfied glaze in Kageyama’s eyes.
He goes in for a second kiss, then a third one, then he gets too greedy and loses count. Kageyama looks absolutely gobsmacked, reciprocating like he can't quite believe this is real.
Man, Hinata loves this big dumb idiot so much.
Really, he wonders if his profession of love should be more romantic than burned eggs and hickeys from drunk (fantastic, but still drunk) sex, but he supposes there’s nothing really conventional about him and Kageyama, is there?
He has no idea what they’re going to do after this. They’re two separate people, with two separate lives, and they’re professional athletes who are most certainly not out to the public yet. He doesn’t know how to define their relationship, if they define it at all.
“For the record,” Hinata says, “I love you, too.”