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I. Sweat, Ramen, and the Moon
The first time they almost kissed, it was because of noodles.
Ramen noodles. Of all things. Not candlelight. Not rain. Not the swelling strings of a romantic orchestral crescendo. Just Hinata, bent over a paper bowl of tonkotsu ramen under the sterile flicker of a vending machine light, sweat still clinging to his forehead like dew on a morning leaf, and Kageyama standing across from him looking like a particularly judgmental crane statue.
"You're slurping too loud," Kageyama said, nose scrunched, as if personally offended by the acoustics of broth.
Hinata looked up, a long strand of noodle halfway dangling from his mouth, eyes bright like traffic cones and stupidly wide. "Mmfh?"
"Don’t talk with food in your mouth," Kageyama snapped, ears red.
Hinata swallowed it whole with zero dignity and pointed his chopsticks accusingly. "You’re just mad ‘cause yours isn’t as good as mine."
Kageyama’s bowl had miso. He had regrets. He had made his choices and was now living in the consequences. That was life.
“I picked this one on purpose,” Kageyama lied, because he was prideful and an idiot.
"Right," Hinata snorted. "Sure. Totally didn’t panic and grab the first thing you saw because the vending machine made a scary noise."
“I didn’t panic,” Kageyama said. “I was strategic.”
“Oh, strategic. Like the time you tried to spike the ball with your face.”
“That was one time.”
Hinata burst out laughing, sharp and sudden and ringing through the late-night gym shadows like a firework that forgot it was supposed to be subtle. His body folded in half, arms wrapped around the steaming bowl, chopsticks flailing in the air like tiny helpless oars.
Kageyama stared at him like he was something to be deciphered. Something loud and chaotic and dazzling. Like a volleyball dropped from the heavens and still in flight. Something he couldn’t block. Something he didn’t want to.
And that was the problem.
Because in that brief moment—while Hinata was mid-laugh, cheeks flushed from soup and muscle burn and moonlight, mouth wide and stupid and beautiful—Kageyama thought:
Oh no. I might love him.
Wait. No. Not love. Something else. Something worse. Something stupid like… want to kiss him.
Hinata looked up, and that was the mistake. He caught Kageyama staring, and his laughter caught in his throat like a whistle, like a hiccup, like the sudden realization that something very big and very dumb was happening.
“What,” Hinata said. Defensive. Suspicious. Blushing like hell. “Do I have broth on my face or something?”
“…No,” Kageyama said. But he said it with the quiet panic of someone realizing they’re standing at the edge of a cliff they walked onto voluntarily.
Then it happened.
Hinata leaned in.
Not a lot. Just a fraction. Just enough to count. Just enough to smell the salt on Kageyama’s skin and the starch of his jersey and the whisper of miso still clinging to his breath.
“You’re weird,” Hinata said, grinning, but softer now. Dumber now.
“You’re annoying,” Kageyama whispered back, very much not breathing.
The space between them shrank. Physics held her breath. The vending machine hummed with destiny. The ramen steamed. The moon watched, nosy as hell.
Six inches.
Four inches.
Two—
“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TWO DOING, ROMEO AND JULIET?!”
Tanaka’s voice came screeching across the gym like an airborne insult. The paper bowl went flying. The noodles hit Kageyama in the chest like limp, starchy confetti.
“AUGH—YOU—WHAT—WE WEREN’T—”
“GODDAMMIT, TANAKA-SENPAI!” Hinata shouted, both horrified and mortified and slightly aroused by the proximity of Kageyama’s face.
“You almost—!! I saw that!! I saw it!! You were gonna smooch like a shoujo manga under the moonlight—”
“WE WERE NOT!!” Kageyama roared, throwing ramen debris with the fury of a betrayed lover.
“Why would I kiss him?” Hinata yelled, hair wild, cheeks red, soul screaming.
“Why would you?” Kageyama echoed, and then glared. “Wait, what’s that supposed to mean?!”
“I mean, you’re a jerk!”
“You’re short!”
“You’re an idiot!”
“You like my tosses!”
“I HATE THAT I LIKE YOUR TOSSES!!”
Tanaka was rolling on the floor. Asahi had walked away. Suga was watching from the shadows like a patient god of slow burn romance.
Hinata stomped off to bed with broth on his chin and his heart trying to punch its way out of his chest.
Kageyama didn’t sleep at all that night.
He just lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, mouthing the word “almost” like it was a curse and a promise.
II. The Closet of Denial (and Sweat)
The second time they almost kissed was a team bonding exercise.
Or, as Kageyama would later describe it, "emotional terrorism disguised as cooperative strategy-building."
It started because Daichi-senpai had read one (1) leadership blog.
They were at another weekend training camp, this time at a rundown but spirited community center that looked like it hadn’t been cleaned since the Meiji period. Hinata called it "cozy." Kageyama called it "a building that wants to kill us all."
On the second night, after endless drills and barely edible cafeteria curry, Daichi gathered them all in the main hall and clapped his hands like a cult leader.
“All right!” he said, eyes shining with misguided optimism. “Time for our trust-building game! Everyone draw a name. You’ll be paired up and locked in the supply closet for fifteen minutes. No phones. No ball. Just conversation.”
There were groans. A few gasps. Noya tried to fake a nosebleed to get out of it. Tanaka declared it unconstitutional. Yachi looked ready to cry. Tsukishima put in his earbuds and pretended to transcend this plane of existence.
Kageyama immediately regretted not faking his own death.
He drew a slip of paper from the hat.
It said: Hinata.
He did not scream. He did not flip the table. He did not weep, or pray, or throw himself into the nearest lake.
But he did lock eyes with Hinata across the circle, and Hinata gave him the most smug, shit-eating grin Kageyama had ever seen in his life.
The universe hated him. That was fine. He hated it right back.
---
The supply closet was approximately the size of a coffin. A small coffin. For maybe a rabbit. A flat rabbit.
Kageyama stepped in first, turned around, and Hinata followed like a puppy chasing a death wish. The door closed behind them with a theatrical creak, like something out of a haunted romance anime. Suga counted down the timer outside.
Kageyama immediately regretted everything.
“Hi,” Hinata said. Too chipper. Too dangerous. Radiating mischief like a sunrise with a knife.
Kageyama made a strangled noise in response, which he hoped translated to hello, I am barely surviving your presence.
They were pressed shoulder-to-shoulder, thigh-to-thigh, chest-to-air. The air itself was already warm with adolescent tension and Febreze. Hinata was sitting half sideways, one leg slung up on a box of cones labeled "DO NOT TOUCH," his hand draped casually over his knee like he was posing for a Calvin Klein ad in Hell.
Kageyama looked anywhere else. The mop. The stack of unused nets. A rogue volleyball that might be sentient. Anything but Hinata’s mouth, which was right there, in the vicinity of his face, which was a problem of cosmic proportions.
Fifteen minutes. He could survive that.
Probably.
Hinata leaned closer, whispering like a villain.
“So. Kageyama.”
Kageyama flinched like he’d been shot in the kneecap.
“What?” he barked. Which came out about three decibels louder than was appropriate for a small, echo-y closet.
Hinata giggled. Giggled. Like a fairy prince with murder in his heart.
“You’re sweating,” Hinata said.
“No, I’m not,” Kageyama lied, profusely.
“You are,” Hinata said, poking his temple. “Look, right here. Little sweat drop. Cute.”
“D-don’t call me that.”
“What? Cute?”
“THAT. YES. THAT.”
Hinata tilted his head and made a noise like hmmmmm but worse. A philosophical hmm. A strategic hmm. A maybe I’ll kiss you hmm.
Kageyama was not okay.
“It’s okay if you like me, you know,” Hinata said. Casually. Like a bomb.
Kageyama made a noise that might’ve been a laugh, or a hiccup, or a spiritual implosion.
“I don’t,” he managed. “Like you.”
“Oh,” Hinata said, all mock innocence. “So you stare at my mouth because you hate it?”
“I wasn’t staring!”
“You were,” Hinata said, smugger than a god.
“I WAS LOOKING AT YOUR TEETH BECAUSE THEY’RE DUMB.”
“Wow,” Hinata whispered, voice husky with sarcasm. “So romantic. Say it again. Slower.”
“I hate you,” Kageyama whispered, trembling.
“I hate you more,” Hinata said, scooting even closer.
They were practically breathing each other’s carbon dioxide at this point. A fact that biology class would’ve warned against. But Kageyama wasn’t thinking about science anymore. He wasn’t thinking at all.
His eyes dropped. To Hinata’s lips. Which were parted. And soft. And dangerously, stupidly close.
He could feel the moment swelling. Expanding. The weight of it like a set. Like a jump. Like the second right before a perfect toss meets a perfect spike—
BANG BANG BANG.
“TIME’S UP, LOVERBOYS!” Tanaka’s voice boomed from the other side of the door. “KEEP IT IN YOUR PANTS!”
Hinata jerked back so hard he elbowed a box labeled “EMERGENCY MOPS.” Kageyama flailed, knocking over a broom. Something clattered. Something fell. Something inside him screamed coward, coward, idiot, you almost—
They scrambled out of the closet like feral animals escaping an exorcism. Kageyama was flushed. Hinata was grinning so hard his cheeks looked like they might split.
“Well,” Hinata said, stretching like a satisfied cat. “That was enlightening.”
Kageyama didn’t speak. He simply walked into the wall.
Back in the dorm that night, Kageyama lay awake again, heart pounding, lips untouched, entire soul vibrating with the memory of proximity.
They hadn’t kissed.
Not technically.
But the ghost of it was there.
Six inches again.
He didn’t even know if he wanted it.
(He did.)
He didn’t even know what he would do if it happened.
(He would die.)
He rolled over and shoved his head under the pillow and whispered:
“…I don’t like him.”
Even the pillow didn’t believe him.
III. If You Lick the Popsicle First, It’s a Sign of Weakness
The third time they almost kissed, it was over a frozen orange-flavored phallic object.
It was hot. Like, God-has-left-us-and-we’re-boiling-in-our-own-sins hot. The gym smelled like steamed socks and ambition. The fans were broken. The floor was sticky. Ennoshita had passed out twice. Noya tried to climb inside the equipment bag to die in peace. Yachi was fanning herself with a discarded stats sheet and whispering prayers to all Shinto deities, in alphabetical order.
And Kageyama was being a little bitch about hydration.
“Drink,” Hinata said, shoving a bottle into his partner’s sweaty, tragic hands.
“I did,” Kageyama said, glaring like he hadn’t slept since 2012.
“Liar,” Hinata snapped. “Your lips look like shriveled-up raisins.”
“They do not.”
“Do too! Like prunes that got divorced.”
“I don’t even know what that means,” Kageyama barked, but he took the bottle anyway and sloshed half of it down his shirt in the process. His jersey clung like a poetic threat. Hinata looked away. Immediately. Tragically.
Cue Tanaka.
“I brought popsicles!” Tanaka announced, holding up two armfuls of plastic tubes like a summer god of chaos. “Found ‘em in the cafeteria freezer! Probably expired! Who wants to risk it?”
They did. They all did. They were teenagers. Nothing mattered. Expired orange popsicles were better than death by gym socks.
Hinata dove in first and emerged victorious with a slightly bendy, definitely-questionable orange pop. It was warm around the edges. He did not care.
Then he turned.
And Kageyama had one, too.
Already unwrapped. Already holding it. Already watching him. Suspicious. Sweaty. So, so pretty in the worst possible way.
Orange juice dripped down the stick onto Kageyama’s wrist. His tongue darted out instinctively to catch it.
Hinata’s soul left his body.
Jesus Christ on a bicycle.
It should’ve been illegal. Someone should’ve called the police. Or a priest. Or both. That wasn’t just licking a popsicle. That was licking a loaded gun in the middle of a church service.
Kageyama paused. Looked up. Noticed Hinata staring.
“What,” he said, too defensive. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
Hinata blinked. Swallowed. Died quietly inside.
“No reason,” he said, way too fast. “You just eat weird.”
“I do not.”
“You do,” Hinata said. “You’re licking it like you’re in a soap commercial.”
“I’m not licking it! I’m—consuming it!”
“That’s not better!”
Kageyama stepped closer. Popsicle in hand. Dripping. Shining. Malevolent.
Hinata stepped back. Into a bench. His thigh hit the edge. He hissed. Kageyama didn’t stop walking.
“Wanna try mine?” Kageyama asked, voice casual but low. Evil. Practiced.
Hinata froze.
“Why would I want your mouth stick,” he said, too high-pitched, too loud, too alive in the wrong ways.
Kageyama tilted his head. He was two steps away now. Sweat glinting. Jersey clinging. Eyes like a goddamn predator.
“It’s orange,” he said. “You like orange.”
“That’s not how that works,” Hinata muttered, heart going 60mph in a 30 zone.
Kageyama held it up.
Like a challenge.
Like a test.
Like if you take a bite of this popsicle, you’re admitting everything you’re too scared to say out loud.
Hinata stared at it.
At the popsicle.
At Kageyama’s lips.
He thought about how soft they looked. How close they were. How if he leaned in just a bit—
Six inches.
Four.
Two.
“You’re thinking about it,” Kageyama said, quiet now.
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“I’m thinking about punching you in the face.”
“Same difference.”
Hinata swallowed. Hard.
Kageyama took one last slow lick of his own popsicle. It should have been revolting. Sticky. Dumb. But Hinata watched it like it was a slow-motion confession.
And then—
Hinata lunged.
Not at Kageyama.
But toward the popsicle.
He bit the top right off it like a gremlin.
Kageyama yelped. “WHAT THE HELL—”
“It’s mine now!” Hinata declared, holding it like a sword, eyes wild. “You hesitated. Your dominance is gone.”
“That’s not how—this isn’t—what the hell does that mean?!”
“You know exactly what it means,” Hinata said, shaking the melted tube like a warning. “I won the popsicle war.”
“You bit my food,” Kageyama hissed, looking vaguely murderous. “You bit where I licked.”
Hinata froze.
Kageyama froze.
They stared at each other.
The air got real weird.
Real heavy.
Real breath-sharing level of weird.
Because the realization sank in, slow and thick and terrifying:
Mouth on mouth. By proxy. By accident. By war.
By intimacy.
Hinata’s ears turned red.
Kageyama’s went crimson.
Nobody moved.
Nobody blinked.
Nobody breathed.
Six inches.
It was so easy. All it would take was one step. One lean. One burst of courage or stupidity or sugar-fueled bravado.
Kageyama’s hand twitched.
Hinata’s lips parted, involuntarily.
It could’ve happened. It almost did.
But then—
“YO, ARE YOU TWO SHARING ONE POPSICLE?”
Nishinoya’s voice exploded from the bleachers. “THAT’S SO CUTE I’M GONNA HURL.”
“I shipped this exact thing in my fan comic last week!” Tanaka screamed. “I TOLD YOU IT WAS GAY.”
“Oh my god,” Tsukishima muttered, walking into the sea.
Suga began clapping. “I give it another month. Tops.”
Hinata screamed.
Kageyama threw the popsicle like a javelin and fled.
---
That night, Hinata lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, taste of fake orange still on his tongue.
They hadn’t kissed.
But he bit the place Kageyama licked.
That had to mean something.
Right?
Right???
IV. There Are Too Many Sparkles in This Bath Scene
This one began, as all disasters do, with nakedness.
Hinata did not mean to end up in a bath with Kageyama. Let’s make that clear from the start. He wasn’t trying to engineer a BL scene. He didn’t conspire with Suga-senpai or slip aphrodisiacs into the sports drinks. He was innocent.
(Okay, mostly innocent. The part where he didn’t try to avoid Kageyama when he saw they’d ended up alone in the public bath together? That was... neutral. Neutral decision-making. Passive chaos.)
It was the last night of training camp. The team had survived five days of blood, sweat, tears, one mild electrocution incident (don’t ask), and thirty-seven passive-aggressive jabs from Tsukishima. Morale was high. Ankles were taped. Spirits were broken. Everyone smelled like a mix of liniment oil and despair.
The onsen-style bathhouse connected to the community center was the reward. Suga had hyped it up like a sacred pilgrimage. “It’s got jets,” he’d said, with reverence. “Jets.”
By the time Hinata arrived, most of the others had gone in and come out. He’d taken his time—stretching, hydrating, mentally replaying his spike-to-face ratio for the day. He hadn’t even noticed who was missing until he slid open the wooden door and stepped inside, naked as a newborn, towel slung over his shoulder like a war banner.
And there was Kageyama.
Sitting in the center of the bath like a tragic Greek statue. Shoulders too broad. Jaw too sharp. Eyelashes too damp. Steam curling around him like he’d summoned it. The water sparkled. Actually sparkled. Like anime sparkled.
“Oh,” Hinata said, eloquently. “It’s you.”
Kageyama didn’t look up. “What, expecting someone else?”
“No!” Hinata sat down quickly. Too quickly. His foot slipped. He nearly died.
He submerged himself in the bath with the grace of a stunned deer. The heat hit him like a full-body slap. It was too warm. Too soft. Too dangerous.
“Why’re you blushing?” Kageyama asked after a moment.
“I’m not,” Hinata lied, blinking away the heart attack. “It’s just hot. Your face looks like a steamed dumpling too, shut up.”
Kageyama snorted. “You’re the dumpling.”
“You’re the filling.”
There was silence.
Hinata realized what he said.
Kageyama squinted. “The what?”
“Nothing. Forget it. Forget everything I’ve ever said.”
The steam did a fantastic job of hiding the way Hinata slid lower in the bath, until only his nose and eyes were visible. Like a traumatized little hippo.
Kageyama rolled his eyes, leaned back against the bath wall, and closed his eyes like he was modeling for a tragic romance cover. His arms were outstretched on the ledge. His collarbones were visible. His skin was glistening. Glistening was an act of war.
Hinata tried not to stare.
He failed.
Miserably.
Because how was one supposed to not stare at Kageyama when he looked like the cover art of “Volleyball Boys: Steamy Rivalry Edition”?
Every drop of water gliding down his neck was a betrayal. Every half-lidded blink was a personal attack. His Adam’s apple bobbed once and Hinata saw God.
“I can feel you staring,” Kageyama muttered, without opening his eyes.
“I’m not!” Hinata protested. His voice cracked. His soul cracked.
“You always stare.”
“No, I don’t. Maybe you always stare.”
Kageyama cracked one eye open.
Challenge.
“I don’t stare.”
“You do,” Hinata said, like a fool. “In practice. All the time.”
“I’m watching your form.”
“You’re watching my ass,” Hinata said, before his brain could stop him.
Silence.
Complete silence.
Even the bath jets seemed to hold their breath.
Then Kageyama said, very quietly:
“…It’s a good ass.”
Hinata died.
Actually, fully, truly died. His ghost lifted out of his body and immediately started shrieking. His heart did a triple backflip into a volcano. His toes curled. His soul left the chat.
“You can’t just say things like that!” he yelled, turning to splash Kageyama, mostly to hide the fact that his entire face was pinker than raw salmon.
“Why not?” Kageyama splashed back. “You brought it up!”
“As a joke!”
“Well, it’s true!”
“You’re true!”
“That doesn’t make sense!”
“YOU don’t make sense!”
“YOUR FACE doesn’t make—”
They were yelling now. Splashing. Sliding. It turned into an accidental water fight. Towel forgotten. Modesty abandoned. There was nothing in that bath but two extremely gay volleyball players and a whole lot of steam.
And then it happened.
A slip.
A stumble.
A moment.
Hinata surged forward, grabbing the edge to keep from going under. Kageyama lunged to steady him. Their hands met. Chest to chest. Water sloshed. Skin touched.
Time stilled.
Their faces were inches apart. The kind of inches that don’t exist in real space but in romance manga logic. The kind that stretch into universes of possibility.
Kageyama’s hand was on his waist.
Hinata’s breath was warm on his lips.
They didn’t move.
Couldn’t.
Wouldn’t?
Six inches.
Four.
Two.
Their noses brushed.
There was nothing left between them but yes.
And then—
A sliding door slammed open like a gunshot.
“Yo! Anyone still in there?” Tanaka’s voice echoed, full volume. “We’re playing strip Uno and Daichi’s losing!”
“GET OUT!” both boys screamed in unison.
Silence.
Then a muffled “Oop,” and the door closed again.
Hinata yanked himself away, heart detonating in his chest. Kageyama leaned back like someone had dumped ice water on his soul.
They didn’t say anything.
Didn’t look at each other.
The bath was suddenly too hot. Too loud. Too fragile.
They toweled off in record time, facing opposite walls like monks in shame exile. By the time they were back in the hallway, fully clothed and pink-eared, neither of them spoke.
Not a word.
Not a whisper.
But their hands bumped as they walked.
And neither of them pulled away.
V. I’m Not in Love With You, I’m Just Literally Always Thinking About You
It was nearly midnight. The gym was dark except for the single row of flickering ceiling lights. The kind that hummed and buzzed like something alive, or dying. Or alive and dying, in the most dramatic way possible—like a tortured ghost forced to work a part-time job as a light fixture.
Hinata Shouyou lay on his back on the gym floor, sweaty, sore, and emotionally compromised. His chest was heaving from the third (fourth?) post-practice rally he and Kageyama had started after everyone else had gone home.
It wasn’t even practice anymore. It was war. It was religion. It was something else entirely.
Volleyball wasn’t just volleyball between them. Not anymore. It was language. It was flirtation. It was confession through spike velocity.
It was getting dangerous.
Kageyama stood above him, shadow stretching across the court, haloed in harsh gym light like the world’s grumpiest seraphim. His hands were on his hips. His shirt was sticking to his back. He was glowering down at Hinata with a look that might’ve been irritation or longing or murder.
Hinata, being Hinata, couldn’t tell the difference.
“I told you to stop chasing every set like it’s your last,” Kageyama snapped.
“You set it like it was my last,” Hinata said, grinning despite the way his ribs were still rattling.
“That’s not an excuse to throw your whole body into a death leap!”
“Have you met me?”
Kageyama muttered something about ‘reckless dumbasses’ and offered him a hand.
Hinata took it. Of course he did.
Because of course Kageyama’s hand was calloused in exactly the right way. And of course it was warm and solid and grounding. And of course he pulled too hard, and Hinata stumbled forward, chest-first, into his stupid, tall, sweaty everything.
“Woah,” Kageyama said, arms steadying him, too close, too fast.
“Oops,” Hinata said, not moving. “My bad.”
“You always do this,” Kageyama muttered, but he didn’t push him away.
“Do what.”
“This. Get close. Say something dumb. Look at me like that.”
Hinata blinked. “Like what.”
“Like I hung the damn moon,” Kageyama said, very low. Very unfair.
Hinata’s heart leapt into his throat and built a nest there.
“That’s a weird thing to say,” Hinata whispered. “Are you okay.”
Kageyama didn’t answer. He looked panicked. But not like he wanted to run. More like he was standing on the edge of a cliff and trying to decide if falling was the same thing as flying.
Hinata felt something inside himself twist.
“Kageyama,” he said, softer now.
Kageyama stared at him.
They were close. So close. Stupid close. Close enough to hear each other’s breath. Close enough to count freckles and eyelashes and lies they hadn’t admitted out loud.
And then—
Then it happened.
The moment.
The almost.
The space between their faces pulled taut like a string on a violin, humming with all the things they hadn’t said. Six inches became four, then two. Time slowed. Breathing stopped. The world narrowed down to just this: the sweat on Kageyama’s temple, the trembling of Hinata’s fingers, the aching, burning hope of something that had always been almost.
Kageyama tilted his head.
Hinata tilted his chin.
Their eyes locked.
It was there.
Right there.
And then—
From the hallway, a mechanical wheeze shattered the silence.
The sprinklers came on.
Every. Single. Sprinkler.
Shot water across the gym in a biblical-level flood.
The first blast hit Kageyama square in the face.
The second nailed Hinata in the chest with all the force of divine cockblockery.
“WHAT THE HELL,” Kageyama shrieked, flailing.
“WHY ARE THEY EVEN CONNECTED TO THE GYM,” Hinata yelled back, slipping on the wet floor and landing straight on his pride.
Somewhere, a security alarm chirped.
Somewhere else, probably, God laughed.
By the time they scrambled to their feet, soaking wet, gasping and growling, the moment had passed.
Vanished.
Washed away with the tide.
Again.
Later, in the locker room, still dripping and vaguely electrocuted by a faulty vending machine (long story), they sat in silence.
Hinata peeled off his shirt. Kageyama looked everywhere but at him.
“You almost kissed me,” Hinata said, casual.
Kageyama choked on air. “I did not.”
“You did.”
“I absolutely did not.”
“You tilted your head. That’s the international sign for kiss incoming.”
“I was adjusting my posture!”
“You were adjusting your feelings.”
“SHUT UP!”
Hinata leaned back, hair damp, face smug, heart stupidly full for no reason.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I almost kissed you too.”
Kageyama looked like he wanted to climb inside a locker and die.
“I’m gonna kill you,” he muttered.
Hinata grinned. “You’re gonna kiss me.”
“Same thing.”
And maybe it was.
Almost.
+1. Six Inches Was Never That Far
It didn’t start with a confession.
It started with a fight about yogurt.
Because obviously it did.
The Karasuno third years were graduating. Emotions were high. People were crying. Noya and Tanaka had written a song and performed it with too many pelvic thrusts. Suga cried. Daichi pretended not to. Even Tsukishima got misty-eyed when Yamaguchi hugged him with a sincerity that couldn’t be ignored or mocked.
And somehow, in the middle of all that sentimentality, Hinata and Kageyama ended up in the gym, again, arguing at full volume over something objectively stupid.
“You ate it, Kageyama! My last strawberry yogurt!”
“I didn’t know it was yours!”
“WHO ELSE BRINGS STRAWBERRY YOGURT EVERY DAY LIKE IT’S THEIR EMOTIONAL SUPPORT DAIRY PRODUCT?!”
“You didn’t LABEL it!”
“I SHOULDN’T HAVE TO LABEL MY HEART!”
“You don’t even NEED yogurt, your bones are unbreakable from sheer spite!”
“I love that yogurt like I could love you if you weren’t such an ASSHOLE!”
Silence.
The gym echoed.
Hinata froze, mouth still open.
Kageyama blinked.
"...What did you just say?" Kageyama asked slowly, voice quiet in a way that should be illegal.
“I said,” Hinata said, suddenly very aware of his own mortality, “you’re an asshole.”
“No,” Kageyama said, stepping closer, “that second part.”
Hinata’s heart drop-kicked his ribs.
“...I could love you?” he squeaked.
Kageyama took another step. They were chest to chest now. Six inches. Five. Four.
“You could?”
“Hypothetically.”
“Hypothetically?” Kageyama’s voice dropped half an octave. It was extremely unfair.
“Very hypothetically.”
“So... not really?”
Hinata frowned. “What the hell do you want me to say?”
“I want you to say it.”
“Say what?”
“That you love me, dumbass!”
Hinata flinched. “You first!”
“No way! You’re the one who almost confessed over yogurt!”
“That was an ACCIDENT!”
“You don’t accidentally love someone!”
“You don’t accidentally steal their yogurt either!”
“I DIDN’T KNOW IT WAS YOURS!”
“WELL IT WAS!”
“I KNOW THAT NOW!”
They were yelling.
Still.
Faces inches apart.
Rage and affection and tension knotted up like a volleyball stuck in the rafters, spinning in slow, horrible circles.
Kageyama’s eyes were fire.
Hinata’s pulse was a live wire.
And then—with absolutely no warning, no preparation, and no pause to check if this was the plot of a BL manga or real life—Kageyama leaned forward, grabbed Hinata by the front of his shirt, and kissed him.
Hinata made a sound like a microwave short-circuiting.
Kageyama froze. Only for a second.
Long enough to panic.
Long enough to think: Oh shit what if I read this wrong what if he punches me in the face or calls me a freak or—
Hinata kissed back.
Hard.
Like the world was ending.
Like he’d been holding it in for years and had finally, finally, finally been given permission to be selfish.
Their mouths were clumsy and hot and honest.
Kageyama’s hands shook.
Hinata made a little noise in the back of his throat and Kageyama melted like a power outage.
They kissed again.
And again.
And again.
Until Hinata pulled back, breathing heavy, hair a mess, eyes wild.
“You stole my yogurt,” he whispered.
“I’ll buy you a million yogurts,” Kageyama whispered back.
Hinata grinned.
“I love you,” he said. This time, not hypothetically.
Kageyama stared.
Then shoved him lightly and muttered, “Took you long enough.”
“You kissed me first!”
“You were taking forever!”
“YOU WERE YELLING AT ME ABOUT DAIRY!”
“You started it!”
“You—!”
Kageyama kissed him again.
It shut him up.
(It also made his knees wobble. Hinata would deny that for the rest of his life.)
They stayed in the gym long past dark. Talking. Not talking. Sitting shoulder to shoulder. Teasing. Blushing. Laughing about all the times they’d almost done this before.
“So, the bath,” Kageyama said.
Hinata groaned. “Don’t bring up the bath.”
“I almost kissed you.”
“YOU ALMOST DIED BY SLIPPING ON A TILE!”
“You were blushing so hard.”
“You were glittering. It was unnatural.”
Kageyama smirked.
“Wanna take another bath together?” he asked.
Hinata threw a volleyball at his head.
It missed.
Kageyama laughed.
The ball hit the floor with a thud.
Six inches.
And no distance at all.