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In Brazil, Hinata Shoyo was watching TV, tired, with a nosebleed, feeling as though the whole world had expired. Nostalgia coursed through his veins, and the cotton in his nose seemed to press all his thoughts into his brain. The face of his rival on the television made him grimace. He couldn’t believe it—he didn’t want to see him living the dream he had longed for all his life. Hinata couldn’t get his head straight about the young Japanese setter. He hated him, but the very thought of hating him sent him spiraling into deep reflection. Did he really hate the man on the screen? Was it envy? Perhaps the feeling was something else.
The milk in the fridge had expired, and all the leaves had already fallen from the trees that winter. Tobio Kageyama couldn’t care less. The match went well, but winning didn’t feel the same as it did two years ago. Back then, he was always quiet, just absorbing everything the red-haired boy said, feeding off the good and bad words Hinata spat at him. “You’re now the king of the court,” or, “While I’m here, you don’t have to worry,” Hinata would say. Hinata saw him—truly saw him through how he played. Nowadays, Kageyama couldn’t seem to find anyone who understood him like Hinata did.
Guilt overwhelmed Kageyama. He wanted to win, he really did, but winning without Hinata there was unfulfilling. Meanwhile, Hinata couldn’t help but feel left behind, homesick, stuck in bed, depressed, and unable to stop thinking about Kageyama Tobio. He was falling deeper and deeper into thoughts of him.
The chills running down Hinata’s spine made him believe he was coming down with a fever. He took his pills and waited for Kageyama to metaphorically "kill" the ball with his serve. Scary? Maybe for others. For Hinata, it felt like nothing. Kageyama was on international TV, while he was sick in bed, unable to work, to train, to live. He watched him reject all the things that made him human, and Hinata could see it in the way he played. Feeling emptier by the hour, he couldn’t help but want to call Kageyama.
"Call me if you want," Hinata texted, immediately regretting it. He wanted to close his eyes and disappear.
Kageyama saw the text a few hours later. The lingering feeling of nostalgia and desire hit him all at once. He wanted to call Hinata, to tell him to stop stalling on another continent and get his ass over there. But he knew he couldn’t. The moment he did, he would reveal his true feelings—the longing, the desire to play with him, against him. He still didn’t know. Maybe his feelings were more than just rivalry.
“Missing me?” Kageyama almost sent the message without thinking, his anxious brain barely functioning. He sent it anyway.
Hinata, rarely awake due to his fever, saw the message. "Yes," he replied, delirious—truly delirious.
Kageyama called him the moment he saw the message, without a second thought.
"I’ll take this as a win," Kageyama said.
"Aren’t you the one calling me? Also, you messaged me first before the match, so I could take that as a win," Hinata argued.
"I wasn’t the one accepting a ‘missing’ allegation."
"I’m delirious from a fever; can you really blame me?"
Hours passed. Hinata was still tired; the fever refused to break. But hearing Kageyama’s voice—and the stubbornness of not wanting to lose—kept him awake, even if the hours weren’t on his side.
"You know I have work tomorrow, right?"
"So? Maybe you should call in sick with that fever," Kageyama teased.
"I actually have a fever, Bakayama."
"Wait, really?" Tobio was utterly surprised. He thought Hinata was just a little tired from the late hour or from training earlier. He didn’t expect the "delirious fever" Hinata mentioned to be real. "Did you take anything for it?" That fever transported him back a few years, to that awful day when he knew but stubbornly let Hinata keep playing, thinking the red-haired boy’s monstrous stamina would carry him through to the end of the tournament.
Kageyama’s voice sounded a little desperate, or so Hinata thought.
"It’s not like you can do anything about it. I took some medicine. I think I’m just a little homesick, Tobio." The name slipped from Hinata’s mouth without him intending it. It felt spiky on his tongue, like he was saying something completely wrong. That name burned his throat and heart, damaged his tongue, and yet somehow soothed his thoughts.
The name made Kageyama blush, as if that was the only way his name was meant to be said, as if that was the only tone, the only voice, that could pronounce it. It softened his ears, warmed his heart, and flooded his thoughts. He was glad Hinata couldn’t see him at that moment.
“I could do something about it. I’m here in Brazil, dumbass," Kageyama blurted out, offering something he never thought he would.
“I could send you the location, but just so you know, I’ll take it as a win if you come.” Hinata sent his apartment number and street. He never thought Kageyama would actually show up. It wasn’t obvious, especially when Kageyama hung up right after. (That was his 875th win against Kageyama’s 890th.)
Hinata went to sleep, exhausted from the fever. He didn’t notice when, at three in the morning, the doorbell rang, or when Pedro (who was watching One Piece at an unholy hour to catch up) answered the door, or when Tobio, looking exhausted and like he had run a mile, entered his apartment.
Tobio would never admit he was worried, but there he was, disheveled, with a pharmacy bag in hand, his clothes barely put together, looking like he rushed there.
"O quarto de Hinata é a primeira porta do corredor," Pedro said. Kageyama didn’t understand a thing. He looked at Pedro, confused, until Pedro just pointed to Hinata’s room and said his name, like a caveman.
It didn’t matter. The moment he walked through the door, he saw the usually orange fluff damp with the cold sweat caused by Hinata’s fever. Kageyama opened one of the cooling pads he brought from the Olympic village and placed it on Hinata’s head, causing him to jump at the cold.
Kageyama Tobio was rather clueless when it came to being caring. Maybe it was because he lacked that kind of care after his grandfather died. Maybe he just didn’t know how to care, his body too used to being alone, too used to not caring, too lacking, too broken.
"Kageyama?" The surprise was apparent in the voice of the freshly awoken redhead. The coolness on his forehead was somehow reassuring, comforting, and the sight of his rival was, honestly, a nice view to wake up to.
"Go back to sleep, dumbass," said the Olympian, though he couldn’t hide the look of absolute worry on his face, or the embarrassment in his voice, or the redness that wrapped itself around his cheeks, making him think maybe he should have put the cooling pad on his own face instead.
There was no way Hinata would forget this. The Kageyama Tobio was trying to—focus on that word—tone down his fever, to help him heal, to help him. Hinata tried to laugh, but he couldn’t—he was too tired. "You’ll get sick too," was all he managed to say.
"I have a strong immune system, unlike you," Kageyama replied. His words penetrated the redhead’s mind, filling him with dread, with memories of the past, with the fear of not being enough, the fear of falling. That was why he was in Brazil in the first place—to never fall again. "And you look like you could use the help. You’re drenched, Shoyo," Kageyama added, his voice softening. His mouth felt like it was on fire, and Hinata’s eyes widened more than he thought they could. His heart warmed and raced.
"I’ll take this as a win. 876th. I’m catching up to you, Tobio," Hinata mustered up the strength to say. Kageyama just looked at him in disbelief.
"I’ll just leave right now, then," Kageyama said in a serious tone, standing up. Hinata, in shock, grabbed his shirt. The fever, even as it began to cool, made him extremely emotional and caused his eyes to water. When he was young, his mother used to say he became a crybaby when he had a fever. It was definitely something he didn’t want Kageyama to see, so he diverted his eyes to the mattress, staring at it so hard he swore he could see through it to the floor.
"Don’t go," his voice came out a little broken. He was desperate for home, desperate for his friend, desperate for the company the setter brought him.
To both their surprise, Kageyama didn’t leave. He just sat back down on the floor, opened his water bottle, and offered some to his rival.
"Tobio, you know I know you," Hinata began, his words slow and gentle, as if speaking required all the energy he had left. "I can see when you disregard yourself, when you stop thinking of yourself as human. You can’t keep doing that in matches."
Kageyama was taken aback by how well Hinata could read him, even after being apart for a year. Through a television screen, Hinata could still see right through him, just like when they played together. Kageyama didn’t want to admit it, but a part of him knew Hinata was right. He wasn’t a robot, even if sometimes he tried to act like one.
"It’s not the same..." Kageyama started, catching himself before he could finish the thought with without you.
"What isn’t the same? You’re acting just like you did in our second year against Dateko. We lost because you were trying to be perfect, like a damn robot. Your sets don’t have to be flawless, Kageyama. When you focus too much on perfection, you mess up—your head gets in the way, you desynchronize with your team. You need to actually have fun," Hinata blurted out, his voice slightly cracking with the effort. He was right, of course. Kageyama’s love for volleyball and winning was so immense that he sometimes forgot about the joy, the camaraderie, the pain and happiness that came with it. But that was never a problem when Hinata was around. If Hinata could smile at him, look at him on the court, play with him or against him, all the emotions—the great, the wrong—would flood back and fill his soul. Their rivalry, their friendship, it was all that grounded him, made him feel alive.
"It doesn’t matter, Shoyo," Kageyama said, his voice tinged with frustration. "Go back to sleep. You’ll never get better if you stay awake. You need to rest." He reached out, gently pushing Hinata back onto the bed, wrapping him up in the blankets. Then, almost instinctively, he began playing with Hinata’s hair, the way someone might soothe a restless child.
Kageyama stayed there, absentmindedly threading his fingers through Hinata’s hair, ignoring the occasional sleepy chatter Hinata tried to engage him with. It didn’t really matter, though; before long, Hinata was asleep, his breaths evening out into a soft rhythm.
The dark-haired setter rested his head on the side of the bed, his eyes fixed on the peaceful face of the redhead he admired so much. He was tired, too—exhausted, actually. The match against Italy had been brutal, a grueling 3-2 win with a final set score of 23-21. But as he sat there, watching Hinata sleep, all he could think about was the warm, glowing presence of the boy who had always been his sun.
"It’s not the same without you there," Kageyama whispered into the quiet night, the words slipping out before he could stop them.
I like you was what he really wanted to say.
Kageyama sighed softly, closing his eyes for a moment. He knew he should go back to the olympic villa, should get some rest before another day of training and preparations for the next match. But he couldn’t bring himself to leave. Instead, he stayed, feeling the soft rise and fall of Hinata’s breath, listening to the faint sounds of the night in Brazil.