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1. The Time Yachi Thought They Were Already Dating (And Had a Crisis Mid-Practice)
Yachi Hitoka prided herself on being observant. Well—okay, not always observant. She missed a lot of social cues, and yes, she sometimes confused sarcasm for sincerity (Tsukishima was a minefield), but she knew people. She was an artist. Artists had intuition. Artists could feel vibes.
So when Kageyama Tobio shoved a banana at Hinata Shouyou’s mouth mid-practice and gently told him to "chew it properly or you’ll choke, dumbass,” she paused.
Paused and blinked. Tilted her head. Squinted.
Hinata, cheeks bulging with potassium, beamed up at him, eyes full of sunlight and the kind of dumb love usually reserved for anime protagonists and overly loyal golden retrievers.
“Thannkkssshh Kageyamaaa!” he garbled, banana still in his mouth.
Kageyama just snorted and turned away, ears tinted barely pink.
Yachi panicked.
Not because they were being weird. But because she realized—oh no—they were dating. They had probably been dating for weeks. Months. Maybe since first year! Maybe the banana was symbolic! Maybe she’d missed the signs and now she’d be that friend, the one who’s like “wait, you two are together??” six years into the relationship.
She glanced at Kiyoko, who was calmly taping up Asahi’s fingers. Kiyoko definitely knew. Of course she knew. Kiyoko was cool and collected and always knew everything. Kiyoko probably helped plan their first date. Kiyoko had probably orchestrated their emotional growth through shared warmups and indirect encouragement.
“Um,” Yachi whispered to her. “H-how long have they… y’know…?”
Kiyoko raised an eyebrow. “What?”
“Hinata and Kageyama,” Yachi whispered louder. “They’re together, right?”
Kiyoko paused. Then slowly turned to look at the two idiots now chasing each other around the gym because Kageyama had called Hinata “a brainless monkey,” and Hinata had responded by climbing on his back and attempting to strangle him with his practice jersey.
They were snarling and tangled and bright-eyed, like wolves in love. Or enemies in a romance manga. Or maybe both. Hinata shouted, “SAY IT TO MY FACE, MILK FREAK,” and Kageyama responded with a roar of “IT’S CALLED BONE DENSITY, SHRIMP.”
Kiyoko blinked. Thought. Took a sip of water.
“They’re not dating.”
Yachi choked. “WHAT?”
“They’re idiots.”
Yachi’s world collapsed like a poorly constructed Jenga tower.
“But—but—the banana?? The gentle feeding?? The blushing??”
Kiyoko shrugged, her expression the serene equivalent of yeah, I don’t know either. “You get used to it.”
And Yachi realized, with the slow, dawning horror of someone watching a romcom from inside the screen, that no one was going to tell them. Not the team. Not their senpais. Not the universe.
They would just keep throwing bananas and insults and yearning glances across the court, completely unaware they were in love.
Yachi wanted to cry. Or scream. Or draw them kissing in a comic and slide it under their locker doors like some kind of emotional intervention.
She settled for writing “JUST KISS ALREADY” in all caps in her notebook and highlighting it with three colors.
2. The Time Noya Bet Money on Their First Kiss (and Nearly Won It During a Timeout)
It started, as many things did with Nishinoya Yuu, with a scream and a poorly thought-out wager.
“Well, I give it two weeks before they kiss.”
Tanaka, ever the loyal co-conspirator, spit out his sports drink. “TWO WEEKS? You mean they haven’t kissed already?!”
The gym was humid with sweat and the echoes of thundering shoes. Hinata and Kageyama were in the middle of an intense one-on-one warm-up, which somehow always devolved into a blood feud. Today’s theme was “deciding who could spike a ball hard enough to make the windows tremble,” which probably wasn’t regulation safe, but hey—Coach was running late.
Hinata had just launched himself into the air with the grace of a mythical sunbird on Red Bull, and Kageyama, face like a storm cloud, set the ball so perfectly it looked pre-programmed. Then: BOOM. A spike that echoed like a gunshot, Hinata landing in a skid, grinning like he’d just committed a minor felony and wanted a medal for it.
Kageyama yelled, “DON’T JUST GRIN, DUMBASS, FIX YOUR FORM,” but he looked smug in that subtle, rage-drenched way he got when Hinata pulled off something insane.
Noya pointed aggressively. “That’s what I’m TALKING ABOUT. That’s not friendship. That’s not rivalry. That’s not even teammates. That’s foreplay.”
Tanaka snorted. “You’re on crack.”
“Romantic crack. I bet you 5,000 yen they kiss before the Tokyo practice match.”
“Pfft. Make it 10,000. No way either of them’s got enough brain cells to realize they’re in love.”
Yamaguchi, nearby and trying to exist peacefully in the Lord’s gymnasium, sighed into his bottle. “You know they can hear you, right?”
“No, they can’t,” Noya said confidently. “They’re too busy eye-fucking and pretending it’s hate.”
And sure enough, across the gym, Hinata and Kageyama were forehead to forehead, yelling things like “YOU SMELL LIKE MILK AND FAILURE” and “OH YEAH? WELL YOU JUMP LIKE A DRUNK FROG,” while everyone else tried not to absorb the unfiltered energy of a married couple mid-divorce.
Day One of The Bet:
They argued about whether apples or bananas were better pre-practice. The conversation escalated into nutritional research, a broken clipboard, and Hinata attempting to bite Kageyama. Noya whispered to Tanaka, “Foreplay. This is textbook.”
Tanaka rolled his eyes. “If they start fighting with fruit, I’m walking out.”
Day Four:
Hinata called Kageyama “my favorite setter in the whole wide universe, even if he’s a jerk,” and Kageyama choked on his own water bottle, turned purple, and stormed off to go "do receives by myself where it’s quiet and no one talks to me like a weirdo.”
Noya fist-pumped. “That was a confession.”
Tanaka: “That was a seizure.”
Day Nine:
They got into a screaming match over who loved volleyball more. Kageyama said, “You don’t understand it like I do!” to which Hinata shouted back, “I feel it in my SOUL, Kageyama, just like I feel YOU.” There was a stunned silence after that. Tanaka dropped his water bottle. Yachi dropped herself.
Kageyama turned maroon and screamed, “SHUT UP!” and slammed his face into a towel.
Noya turned to Tanaka, smug as hell. “We are kissing-adjacent.”
Day Thirteen: The Timeout Incident
Practice match. High tension. Coach had called a timeout after a poorly timed block from Kageyama and Hinata misreading the tempo.
The team huddled, panting. Noya, ever helpful, was shouting nonsense like “BE THE BALL” and “IMAGINE YOU’RE DATING,” which actually made Kageyama visibly malfunction.
But then.
Then it happened.
Hinata, flushed and breathless, grabbed Kageyama by the jersey and pulled him close. “Stop thinking so much, okay?! Just—just trust me, idiot. I’ll fly, so you better be there to set me. Always.”
Kageyama stared at him.
The world paused.
Yachi gasped.
Sugawara quietly prepared to turn around and give them privacy in case they started making out.
Even Daichi, who had seen some Things™, looked like he was seconds from calling in a chaperone.
Hinata didn’t back off. Their faces were so close. Foreheads nearly touching. Kageyama’s hand twitched like he was this close to reaching out. His mouth opened—
“Time in!” yelled the ref.
They both flinched, like startled cats. Kageyama immediately turned and stalked off like he hadn’t just nearly had a spiritual awakening. Hinata scratched the back of his head and trotted after him, muttering “geez, he’s so dramatic.”
The gym stayed quiet for a beat.
Then Tanaka slowly turned to Noya.
“Pay up.”
Noya groaned and slapped the cash into his hand.
“They’re literally one near-death experience away from banging in the locker room,” he grumbled.
“Yeah,” Tanaka sighed, staring off wistfully like an old man who’s seen too much. “But until then… we suffer.”
Yamaguchi, walking past, muttered under his breath, “Honestly, I think we’re all in a slow-burn romantic comedy, and I want out.”
3. The Time Tsukishima Tried to Intervene (and Instantly Regretted It)
Tsukishima Kei was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a meddler. He didn’t do feelings. Or romantic drama. Or people, in general. He was allergic to stupidity and mildly intolerant of joy. He existed in a separate plane of dry sarcasm, headphones, and the distant echo of the Jurassic Park theme playing every time he mentally checked out of a conversation.
But there came a moment—a single moment—when Tsukishima’s patience snapped.
It was a Thursday. That cursed middle-child of weekdays, where motivation went to die. He had survived three quizzes, one near-brawl between Tanaka and a vending machine, and thirty minutes of listening to Yamaguchi explain the subtle differences between Pokémon generations like it was urgent news.
So when he walked into practice to find Hinata and Kageyama—again—in the middle of what could only be described as a romantic volleyball mating ritual, something deep inside him fractured.
Hinata was yelling about "rhythm" and "flow" and "Kageyama, I swear if you don’t start trusting my instincts, I’ll eat your shoes."
Kageyama, in turn, was doing his usual face-melting rage-glare and screaming back things like "YOU HAVE NO INSTINCTS, YOU HAVE A DEATH WISH" and "IF I SET TO YOU WHILE YOU’RE UPSIDE DOWN AGAIN, I’M GONNA GET ARRESTED."
Meanwhile, their bodies moved around each other like gravity was involved. Like they were two planets caught in a deeply angry orbit. They shouted and fought and collided and clicked in that way that made everyone else feel like they were watching an indie sports anime with too much unresolved tension and not enough smooching.
Tsukishima stood there. He blinked. He sighed so hard it rearranged the air pressure in the gym. Then he turned to Yamaguchi, the only person on Earth who he trusted enough to witness his moment of rare human exhaustion.
“I can’t take this anymore.”
Yamaguchi, used to Tsukishima's periodic breakdowns, didn't even blink. “What are you gonna do?”
Tsukishima cracked his neck, took off his headphones, and muttered with the solemnity of a man preparing to disarm a bomb, “I’m going to tell them.”
“Tell them what?”
“That they’re dating. They just don’t know it yet.”
Yamaguchi gasped so hard he nearly swallowed his tongue.
“You can’t do that!” he hissed. “That’s like—like—interfering with fate! You’ll cause a butterfly effect! They’re stupid! They’ll implode!”
Tsukishima had already started walking. “I’ll take that risk.”
The Intervention
Hinata was stretching his calves like a very intense anime protagonist. Kageyama stood nearby, watching him with the grim concentration of a sniper, like if Hinata’s muscles weren’t perfectly warm, he might explode.
Tsukishima approached like a weary prophet. He stood before them, tall and unimpressed, hands in his pockets, mouth a thin line.
“Hi, Tsukishima!” Hinata chirped. “You wanna do receives later? Kageyama’s being a jerk and said my aim is—”
“I’m gonna stop you right there,” Tsukishima interrupted. “This has gone on long enough.”
Hinata blinked. “What’s gone on?”
Kageyama glared. “You better not be starting something—”
“You’re dating,” Tsukishima said, voice flat. “Or in love. Or both. It doesn’t matter. Everyone knows. We are begging you to make it official. You’re polluting the gym with pheromones.”
There was silence.
Silence so deep, Tanaka dropped a ball across the court and whispered “oh shit.”
Hinata tilted his head. “Wait, what do you mean we’re dating?”
Kageyama's mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. “We’re not dating.”
“Yeah,” Hinata agreed. “We’re just best rivals. Who train together. And fight all the time. And eat lunch together. And nap in the same corner of the bus. And once held hands during a thunderstorm, but that was survival instinct—”
“I SET TO YOU BECAUSE YOU’RE GOOD AT SPIKING,” Kageyama said, louder than necessary.
“AND I JUMP FOR YOU BECAUSE YOUR SETS TASTE LIKE DESTINY,” Hinata yelled back.
Tsukishima made a sound. A despairing, exhausted groan that probably aged him five years.
“That’s literally not a thing,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Why do your metaphors sound like a telenovela?”
Yachi, hovering nearby, whispered, “Do they know what flirting is?”
“No,” said Tsukishima, eyes dead. “They think they’re in a sports arc.”
Kageyama crossed his arms, visibly annoyed. “We’re not flirting. He’s just annoying and small and I want to kill him.”
Hinata puffed up. “You’re tall and mean and I want to punch you until the stars explode.”
“SEE,” Tsukishima snapped, whirling on them. “Normal people don’t talk like that unless they’re planning to make out or commit war crimes together. Which one is it?!”
Kageyama looked like he’d just been hit by a truck made of existential crisis.
Hinata blinked, wide-eyed. “Wait... Do I wanna make out with him?”
Everyone froze.
Kageyama made a strangled noise. “WHAT—”
Tsukishima was already walking away. “I did what I could. I’ve planted the seed. I wash my hands of this.”
Yamaguchi caught up with him. “How’d it go?”
“They’re dumber than I thought.”
“Do we... try again?”
Tsukishima glanced over his shoulder. Hinata had Kageyama in a headlock. Kageyama was shrieking. There were blushing cheeks. Someone said the word “lips” and Tanaka screamed into his jersey.
Tsukishima sighed. “They’ll figure it out eventually.”
He paused. Then added, with a soft flicker of pity:
“Or die trying.”
4. The Time Kuroo Tried to Meddle From Another School Like a Long-Distance Matchmaker God
Kuroo Tetsurou had seen a lot of shit in his day.
He’d seen Kenma singlehandedly destroy a man’s will to live with one dry observation. He’d seen Bokuto cry because an ice cream truck drove away before he got his turn. He’d seen Yamamoto try to flirt with a girl using a line he Googled, and witnessed the emotional fallout of that tragedy.
But none of that—none of that—compared to the soul-rending experience of watching Hinata Shouyou and Kageyama Tobio not be in a relationship.
It was unnatural. It was criminal. It was bad volleyball.
“You’re telling me,” Kuroo muttered, pacing around the Nekoma gym like a mad scientist between practice sets, “that they’re still not dating?”
Kenma didn’t look up from his Switch. “Yep.”
“They walk home together.”
“Mm-hm.”
“They share meals, share towel racks, and probably have nightmares about each other.”
“Don’t forget the time Hinata screamed ‘I’LL KILL FOR YOU, KAGEYAMA,’ during that training camp scrimmage,” Kenma added absently. “That was romantic.”
Kuroo threw his hands into the air. “And no one’s locked them in a closet?! You all are failing as friends. You’re enabling chaos. Hinata’s a natural disaster and Kageyama’s a repressed Victorian ghost and someone needs to take action.”
Kenma paused his game. Slowly turned his gaze to Kuroo. “Are you saying you’re going to meddle?”
“I’m not saying that,” Kuroo said, already opening the LINE app.
Kenma sighed. “Don’t. You’re going to make it worse.”
“It’s already worse. I’m about to save romance itself.”
Operation: Set-Up By Setters (™)
Kuroo’s first idea was subtle. Elegant. A psychological masterpiece.
He simply sent a series of texts.
To Kageyama:
Do you ever think about what it means to trust someone with your whole body mid-air? Like how you do with Hinata? Wild, right? 🧠✨
To Hinata:
If you died tomorrow, would you have told Kageyama how you felt? Would you haunt him, or would you let go? Deep questions only. 👻
To both (in a group chat he created without consent):
Hey besties, what’s your couple name? Kagena? Hisho? I’m taking a poll for science. 🔬📊
The group chat was immediately renamed by Kageyama to “DO NOT TEXT ME.”
Hinata renamed it “Volleyball Buddies 💪💥🔥.”
Kuroo renamed it back to “Just Kiss Already.”
Kenma muted the whole conversation.
The Counterattack
“You’re so weird lately,” Hinata said to Kageyama during practice, frowning as he bounced a ball between his hands.
“I’m not weird. You’re weird.”
“You keep flinching when I touch you.”
“I always flinch when you touch me! You’re unpredictable and sticky.”
“I showered! Twice!”
“You still radiate chaos.”
They argued while they stretched, while they ran drills, while they drank water and aggressively avoided eye contact with everyone else. At one point, Kageyama accidentally touched Hinata’s lower back while repositioning during a block and yanked his hand back like he’d been electrocuted.
Hinata’s ears turned red. Kageyama’s turned darker.
Yachi, watching from the sidelines, whispered, “They’re glitching.”
Suga nodded solemnly. “They’ve reached critical tension. We’re minutes away from combustion.”
Kuroo’s Second Wave
It became bolder.
He sent a care package. Inside were:
Matching “King & Knight” T-shirts (size: petty and emotional)
A book titled “Rivals to Lovers: Why You Want to Kiss the Person You Hate”
A hand-written note that read:
"Dear Hinata and Kageyama,
You’re both dumb and in love. Please make out before spring nationals. I’m emotionally invested now.
Sincerely, someone who understands tension. PS: Don’t ask how I got your addresses."
Daichi confiscated the box.
Kageyama tried to fight him for it. Hinata tried to steal the shirts. Tanaka stole the book and later claimed it “changed his life.”
Kuroo got a threatening voice memo from Daichi that just said, “I will end you.”
Kuroo framed it.
The Final Blow
Training camp. Joint matches. Kuroo’s pièce de résistance.
During lunch break, he cornered Hinata by the vending machines.
“Shouyou,” he said dramatically, like a mentor in a coming-of-age movie. “Have you ever looked at someone and thought, ‘I want to set with them forever?’”
Hinata blinked. “I don’t set.”
Kuroo nodded. “Exactly. But with him, you do. You elevate. You become more. He’s not just a setter—he’s your metaphor.”
Hinata stared at him.
Kuroo smiled gently. “Think about that.”
He disappeared into the trees.
Literally. No one saw him for the rest of the day.
Later that night, Kageyama found Hinata sitting outside, staring up at the stars like he was trying to unlock the secrets of the universe.
“Oi,” Kageyama said, tossing him a juice box. “What are you doing out here?”
Hinata took it, sipped, and said, “Do you think we’re metaphors for each other?”
Kageyama squinted. “...what the hell does that mean?”
“I don’t know,” Hinata said, completely sincere. “But it makes me wanna spike something really hard.”
They sat in silence for a long time. Then Hinata whispered, “Kageyama… do you ever think we’re gonna explode?”
Kageyama didn’t answer.
But he didn’t say no.
Back at Nekoma, Kenma glanced over Kuroo’s shoulder at the dramatic report he was typing into his “Oblivious Idiots Romance War Log” Google Doc.
“You’re doing God’s work,” Kenma said.
“I am God,” Kuroo replied solemnly. “And my creations are so dumb.”
The Time Daichi Tried to Enforce Sanity and Accidentally Triggered a Confession (But Not That One)
Daichi Sawamura was tired.
Not regular tired. Not “I woke up early to run laps” tired. Not even “I spent four hours trying to keep Tanaka from jumping off the roof with a towel cape” tired. No, this was soul-deep, bone-aching, volleyball-captain-who’s-had-enough tired.
Because nothing—not rival teams, not exams, not stress, not terror—nothing was more exhausting than watching Hinata Shouyou and Kageyama Tobio try not to be in love.
It was like watching two cats try to fight through a glass door. It was confusing. Loud. Violent in a way that felt both sexual and legally concerning. And above all, it was never-ending.
He’d done what he could.
He’d tried silence.
He’d tried passive-aggressive sighing.
He’d tried team-wide interventions disguised as "communication exercises."
He’d even tried letting Kuroo get involved.
He would never forgive himself for that.
But now—now—it had gone too far.
Because during a practice match, Hinata had tackled Kageyama.
Tackled. Like a rugby player. Like a soldier in a war zone.
Why?
Because Kageyama, God bless his cold, repressed heart, had whispered “Nice receive” in a tone so low, so hoarse, so full of something that sounded almost like desire, Hinata had gone into cardiac freefall and launched himself bodily into him like a grenade.
“HE WAS BEING HOT,” Hinata tried to explain later, red-faced and flailing in the locker room. “I panicked!”
“I WASN’T,” Kageyama shouted, from the floor where he’d landed.
“You said nice receive in your bedroom voice!”
“I DON’T HAVE A BEDROOM VOICE—”
Daichi had to bang on the locker with his forehead to get them to shut up.
“Enough,” he growled. “I’m done. You’re banned.”
Hinata blinked. “From what?”
“From interacting. For one day.”
They stared.
Kageyama opened his mouth, and Daichi cut him off with the force of a man who had buried too many dreams.
“You’re not allowed to talk to each other. Look at each other. Breathe near each other. I will separate your souls by force, if I have to.”
Hinata gasped. “You can’t do that! We’re—” He stopped. Eyes wide.
Kageyama frowned. “We’re what?”
Daichi folded his arms. “Go on, Hinata. Tell the class.”
Hinata’s mouth opened. Closed. “We’re—uh—we’re—compatible setters and spikers.”
Kageyama nodded too fast. “Yeah. Just that.”
Suga snorted so loud he nearly choked on his water bottle.
Asahi, beside him, whispered, “I think I saw God.”
The No-Interaction Day (A Timeline)
8:00 a.m.
Hinata tries to say hi to Kageyama in the hallway.
Yamaguchi physically blocks him with his entire body.
Tsukishima mutters, “Natural selection,” under his breath.
9:24 a.m.
Kageyama nearly says “nice toss” during gym. Bites his own knuckle instead.
Looks like a Shakespearean ghost.
Tanaka cries. “HE’S SUFFERING.”
11:07 a.m.
Hinata is caught doodling “Kageyama’s stupid face” in the corner of his notes.
It has little hearts and a volcano drawn over it.
Noya weeps. “He’s not even subtle anymore.”
12:31 p.m.
They sit across from each other at lunch. Silently. Like divorced parents at a PTA meeting.
The entire table sweats under the pressure of tension.
Suga tries to make conversation. “So... weather?”
Kageyama says, “Cloudy.”
Hinata says, “With a chance of longing.”
Daichi drops his chopsticks. He regrets everything.
3:00 p.m. – Practice
Daichi stands before the team with the posture of a man holding a very large bomb made entirely of gay volleyball energy.
“Today’s drill,” he says, “will involve no cross-setting between you two.”
Hinata explodes. “But—but—”
“No back quicks. No telepathic spike rituals. No yelling his name like it’s the only word you’ve ever learned.”
“But I—!”
“I said no.”
They look heartbroken. It’s Shakespearean. It’s Greek tragedy. They’re Juliet and Juliet, separated by a wall made of volleyball and bad decisions.
Tsukishima raises a hand. “Can we vote on how long the ban should last? I suggest forever.”
Daichi ignores him.
4:12 p.m. – Practice Ends
They haven’t spoken in six hours.
Hinata looks like a wilted flower.
Kageyama looks like he might commit homicide or cry. Possibly both.
Daichi lets the ban lift, finally.
Immediately, Hinata bolts toward Kageyama like he’s been shot from a cannon.
“You STUPID jerkface,” he shouts, punching Kageyama lightly in the chest. “I missed your horrible voice and your angry eyebrows and your weird energy—”
“I wasn’t the one who said ‘cloudy with a chance of longing’ like a dumbass weather poem!” Kageyama yells back.
“You ARE my weather poem!”
Daichi backs away slowly.
Yachi whispers, “Are they about to—?”
They don’t kiss.
But they hover.
Too close.
Not touching.
Breathing the same air like it’s oxygen and narcotics all at once.
Then Hinata says, in a voice full of reckless gravity, “We’re not dating, right?”
“No,” Kageyama says.
“Right,” Hinata says. “Right. Cool. Yeah. Totally not.”
And they stand there. Not dating.
Not.
At all.
Behind them, Daichi screams internally.
Outside, a bird falls from the sky.
Somewhere, the Earth tilts slightly off its axis from sheer romantic tension.
Aftermath
Daichi files an official complaint to the gods. It is titled:
“Why Do I Coach Idiots: A Memoir.”
Suga gifts him a bottle of ibuprofen and a stress ball shaped like Kageyama’s face.
Yachi prays nightly for a resolution.
The team considers hiring a therapist.
Nekoma hears the tale and laughs for days.
And still... they do not kiss.
But Hinata does say, “You’re the reason I want to fly,”
and Kageyama does mutter, “I only jump for you,”
and Daichi seriously considers becoming a farmer.
+1. And The One Time They Weren’t (aka The Kiss That Changed The Laws of Physics)
It didn’t start with a kiss.
It started with a bottle of Pocari Sweat and a question so simple it shook the earth beneath them like a fault line splitting open after months of pressure.
They were sitting on the roof of the school post-practice, just the two of them. The sun was setting like it was embarrassed—too pink, too soft, like it knew what was about to happen and couldn’t bear to stay for it.
Hinata was bouncing his legs like they were spring-loaded.
Kageyama was holding the bottle, sweating, glaring at it like it personally insulted his lineage.
Then—
“Hey,” Hinata said, too loud, too quick. “Do you ever think we’re...like, not just volleyball?”
Kageyama froze.
His grip on the bottle went white-knuckle.
He looked at Hinata like he'd said something obscene, or holy.
Like he’d just asked if they could fly together forever, and not just on a court.
“Not just volleyball,” Kageyama repeated. “What else is there?”
Hinata’s voice cracked. “I don’t know. Everything?”
Flashback: 4 Hours Earlier
Location: The Karasuno Gym, Late Practice
Daichi had forbidden romance speeches during drills, but he couldn’t stop eye contact.
And the eye contact was violent.
That afternoon, Hinata had tripped during a receive and landed face-down in the hardwood. Instead of helping like a normal human, Kageyama stood over him, staring, fists clenched like he was physically restraining himself from confessing.
“You okay?” Kageyama said, voice dry.
Hinata looked up, pink in the cheeks. “Yeah. I like it here.”
“You like it on the floor?”
“No, I like—”
Hinata stopped.
Everyone around them froze.
You could hear the tension.
Noya whispered, “This is either a death or a wedding.”
Suga was placing bets.
Present: The Roof of Fate™
“You don’t just make me want to jump high,” Hinata said, voice trembling like his hands. “You make me want to be better. Not just in volleyball. Like. As a person. Like...you yell at me and I grow emotional intelligence or something.”
Kageyama was staring at him like he’d been handed a confession in puzzle format.
“You make me furious,” he replied, slowly, deliberately. “You make me furious and loud and alive. And I hate how much I—”
He stopped. Gulped.
Hinata blinked, lashes fluttering. “Hate how much you what?”
Kageyama looked down at the bottle. “How much I wait for you. At every toss. Every match. Every stupid moment of my day. I wait for you to say something, look at me, yell at me—anything.”
“Oh,” Hinata whispered, eyes wide. “That’s really—uh. Romantic.”
“Shut up,” Kageyama muttered, red in the ears.
“You shut up.”
“No, you—”
They both leaned in at the same time.
It wasn’t graceful.
Their noses bumped.
Their foreheads clicked.
Their knees knocked like they were reenacting Romeo & Juliet with no budget and too much adrenaline.
And then—
Then it clicked.
A pause. A breath. A cosmic beat.
Then their mouths met.
Soft.
And sharp.
Like everything they’d been yelling about, all wrapped into heat and salt and unspoken sentences turned into touch.
Somewhere across campus...
Tanaka shrieked and grabbed his chest. “They did it. They finally did it. I feel it in my soul.”
Yachi dropped her pencil. “Did what—what?! Are they okay?!”
Noya burst into the room, holding a notebook covered in glittery stickers titled "Hinakage: Timeline to Explosion." “KISS DETECTED. PHASE COMPLETE.”
Back on the roof...
They pulled apart after an eternity and a half-second.
Hinata looked dazed, like he’d been hit by a very gentle truck.
Kageyama looked betrayed by the limits of human language.
“That was...good,” Hinata said, blinking. “We should, uh. Do that again.”
Kageyama didn’t answer.
He just kissed him again.
Harder. Less poetic. More like: finally.
Epilogue: Team Reaction
Suga made a cake.
Yachi cried into it.
Daichi stood in the corner, muttering, “My job here is done,” like a war veteran.
Tsukishima gagged for five full minutes, but secretly wrote “good for them” in his notebook like a closeted romantic.
Tanaka demanded they show PDA weekly to make up for “emotional damage accrued over four seasons.”
Noya made a scrapbook titled “The Ship That Could” and passed it around like gospel.
Kuroo sent a congratulatory basket of strawberries and a note that read:
You did it. You finally figured out you’re gay for each other. I’m so proud. Now win nationals, you absolute disasters. Love, Your Matchmaking God.
And the boys?
Hinata still yelled.
Kageyama still glared.
They still fought like it was foreplay and played like they were extensions of one another’s bones.
Only now, they sometimes kissed behind vending machines.
Sometimes held hands during cool-down stretches.
Sometimes whispered things like “You make me want to fly” with the same intensity they used to reserve for cross attacks.
It wasn’t always perfect.
But it was theirs.