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Hinata had been bothering him all day at the training camp, telling him how he had to do more to hone his volleyball skills. Like Hinata was even one to talk when he still couldn’t receive a ball hardly at all, Kageyama had argued. It was true, too; Hinata had a great physical capability for speed and jumping, but with a lot of other things, he was still mediocre at best. He had no room to talk about Kageyama when he wasn’t even able to spike the ball all that well anymore.
After an intense argument with the orange haired boy, Kageyama was kicked out of his team’s extra practice gym and their actual room where he would be sleeping that night. Now, he was on his way to the fourth gym, where Suga-san had all but forced him to go to with that mom look on his face that screamed ‘obey me or pay the consequences’ and he knew the consequences wouldn’t be good. He came to a stop in front of the gym doors, peeking into the brightly lit room. He could see Nekoma’s captain in there, along with Fukurodani’s and a couple of other guys. He watched them play their practice math, amazed by the level of skill each of them possessed (except for the really tall Russian kid; he still had quite a lot to learn). Nekoma’s captain was tall and had that kind of nonchalance about him that made Kageyama’s blood boil. It was so unfair of him to be able to be good at volleyball and charming people. What a dick.
“Ohoho, you’re Karasuno’s setter!” The booming voice of Fukurodani’s captain shook Kageyama out of his thoughts. After recovering from the initial surprise (and honestly, he should be used to this by now with Hinata, Tanaka, and Nishinoya on his team, but he wasn’t), Kageyama looked up to see the spiky haired energetic player everyone seemed to compare to an owl right in front of him. He was at a loss for words now; he was supposed to come practice with them, but asking to do so felt weird and he really didn’t want to do that. He could probably skip out on practicing with them, he thought, Suga would never know. Just as quickly as that thought had entered his brain, it left. Suga may seem all sweet and motherly, but, just like a real mother, he could be vicious when it came to making his ‘children’ obey him. And yeah, so maybe he was a little scared of Suga’s wrath, but any sane person would be after seeing what Suga had done when Nishinoya thought it would be a good idea to practice his ‘Rolling Thunder ’in the middle of class.
Kageyama, flustered and nervous, bowed to his elder, “I’m Kageyama Tobio.”
“Ooooh, Kuroo!! You’ve gotta come see this kid, bro! He’s so respectful.” The captain (Kageyama really should have remembered his name, honestly) called over his shoulder to the messy black-haired captain who was now chugging down a bottle of water. The Nekoma boy pulled his lips off of the bottle, a smirk on his smug face. Briefly, Kageyama noticed the glint of sweat that wettened Kuroo’s- apparently that was his name- hair and seemed to roll down his forehead. Gross. Who worked that hard after regular practice? Well, Hinata did but Hinata was weird and infuriating, so he doesn’t really count, Kageyama thought to himself.
“Ohoho? You’re Shrimpy-chan’s friend, aren’t you?” Kuroo let out a laugh as he walked over to the door where Kageyama was frozen in place. In the back of his mind, Kageyama registered the other people in the gym staring at him rather openly, but this guy’s presence, along with that of the other captain, was so big and so bright that he could only focus on them. Kageyama, the master of blocking other people out, couldn’t quite focus on everything and that unnerved him.
“W-what? Hinata and I are not friends! We’re just partners and teammates.” Kageyama’s usually stoic demeanor had changed now. He was flustered and he’d even bet his cheeks were the same color as that idiot Hinata’s hair.
“Aww, Kuroo, that’s so cute! I mean I kind of thought Hinata liked Kenma, but hey, if you two are together, I’ll definitely support that.” The other captain- why wouldn’t anyone say his name so that he could properly identify him, damnit!- laughed. Kageyama jumped as he felt a large hand clasp his shoulder roughly. He wasn’t a touchy-feely kind of guy and if he were being honest, people touching him without his prior consent made him incredibly uncomfortable. As if sensing this somehow, Kuroo gently swatted the offending arm off of Kageyama.
“Bo’, he doesn’t mean partners like that. Not everyone’s as gay as you and Akaashi are for each other.”
“Mmm, yeah bro this is true. Akaashi and I are pretty gay for each other.” ‘Bo’ nodded his agreement, smiling at his ‘bro’. From behind the two, Kageyama saw the Fukurodani setter’s head jerked up, his eyes wide. That must be Akaashi because he looked kind of pissed that Kuroo and Bokuto had just outed them. From what he knew about the two (which, admittedly, wasn’t all that much) he couldn’t really see them being together, as Fukurodani’s captain was so energetic and out there while their setter was all cool and collected. They just didn’t seem like they’d do well in a relationship together. Not that Kageyama actually knew anything about relationships; the most experience he’d ever had with one was in elementary school when he ‘dated’ one of the girls in his class because she always had the best bento.
“But ya know,” ‘Bo’ continued on, “Everyone’s at least a little gay. And have you seen the rest of Karasuno’s team? Like, Daichi-san and Sugawara-san are so gay for each other, man, it’s not even funny.”
“Bokuto-san,” A voice from behind the two captains rang out. Kageyama saw Akaashi making his way toward the doors. “Kageyama-san doesn’t want to hear this. He obviously came here to practice so let’s actually practice.”
Kageyama let out a sigh of relief as he was pulled into the gym to practice. Volleyball was something he did inherently well, something that he could control. Talking about sexuality and the way his two senpai were so obviously in love with each other was something else entirely, something else that made him feel all weird.
They split up the few people there into two teams. Akaashi, Bokuto, and some brown haired kid he hadn’t heard the name of were on the opposing team while Kuroo and the tall Russian boy named Lev were on his team. The practice game started out smoothly, with his team winning for the first few serves, but as any athlete knows, winning at the beginning of the game didn’t mean anything. The only thing that truly mattered at the end of the day was who came out victorious at the end of the three sets. Any way, Kageyama had a good feeling about all of this. Kuroo and Lev were both good teammates and with Kuroo he didn’t have to think about secret signals or warning about how and when he was going to set to him. He just knew it, as if it were a normal instinct. It wasn’t the blind kind of trust that Hinata had in him to always get the ball to him, no matter what was going on; it was something else just as special but it was different and it felt good.
“Boo yah! That’s what I’m talking about!” From the opposite side of the net, Kageyama watched as Bokuto screamed after spiking the ball right down through Lev’s hands, which were supposed to be blocking the spiker. Damnit, Kageyama thought, they were only up by one now.
“Oi, baka, what the hell was that?” Kageyama started on, glaring at the first year Nekoma boy before Kuroo stepped in.
“Oh, Kageyama-kun,” The way Kuroo voiced out the honorific ‘Kun’ made him think of Gintama and how Gintoki always called the mayonnaise-guy ‘Hijikata-kun’ with that ridiculous flourish at the end. “Let me take care of it, okay?” Kuroo smiled at Kageyama in a way that showed he wasn’t mad at him for stepping in on admonishing Lev. Then, he turned to the offending middle blocker, “OI, Lev, what was that? Remember you’ve got to keep your arms close enough to where the ball can’t get through and wide enough so that you can still block a wide array of attacks. Like this,” Kuroo lifted his arms, showing off the perfect stance to block the ball. Lev mirrored his captain until Kuroo was satisfied with it before they continued on with the game.
At the end of the night, when Daichi had come around to send everyone to bed, Kageyama was exhausted and starving. He’d been playing with the two other teams for hours, getting setting tips from Akaashi and dating tips from Bokuto (who seemed to still think that he and Hinata were actually partners ), and his normally straight, neat hair was soaked through with the sweat of his hard work. The first thing he did when he got out of the practice was thank everyone who he’d practiced with but then, he headed for the showers. He definitely needed to get rid of this cringe worthy feeling of having sweat all over his body. He wasn’t necessarily a ‘clean freak’ nor was he OCD, but having sweat and bacteria on his body made his skin crawl with utter disgust.
Taking a shower at this time was maybe a bad idea, now that he thought about it. The minute he’d stripped after turning on the hot water, Hinata was upon him. The short red-haired wannabe ace was a s energetic as ever, even though Kageyama highly suspected he’d also been practicing until just now when Daichi had come to collect them.
“Oh, Kageyama! How was your practice? Who’d you practice with? I practiced with Kenma, Daichi, and Suga! It was all really gwaahhh and Kenma even let me play with his PSP during our break!” Of course, being naked and all, Kageyama screamed at his teammate. Did he not know that it was weird to walk in while someone was taking a shower? God, had his mother never taught him any manners? “Sorry, sorry. Geez. Just hurry up and shower. Dad- I mean, Daichi- said lights out is in ten minutes.”
And so, Kageyama showered quickly yet effectively before dressing in his pajamas, a set of light blue shorts with mini volleyballs and a white t-shirt, both of which his mom had bought for him when he told her he was going to a training camp. He slunk into the room where all of Karasuno were set up to sleep and quickly laid down before Hinata could try to talk to him. He was exhausted and his stomach hurt just thinking about how he hadn’t eaten in almost ten hours, but Daichi and Suga would be on his case if he wasn’t in the room by lights out so he couldn’t go to the vending machine around the corner and get a quick snack (or even a nice box of milk). As the lights were turned off, Kageyama could hear Hinata and Noya mumbling to each other about something. God, this is going to be a long night, he thought. But at least tomorrow he could practice with the rest of his Gym 3 friends. Ah, friends. What a nice word.