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Shouyou has never been on a date before. He doesn’t think that Kageyama has been on a date before, either. He can’t imagine it. Kageyama would probably just scowl at his date the whole time, and he wouldn’t be able to play volleyball or talk about volleyball. That’s what Hinata’s mother said. No talking about volleyball on a date .
But then, that was a purely hypothetical situation, because Shouyou is not going on a date. Not with Kageyama. Not with anyone. He’s just going to the park with Kageyama, to hang out. Alone.
Even if Shouyou did have a little, tiny crush on Kageyama—which he does not—wanting something to be a date doesn’t make it a date. Besides, Kageyama is a boy, and Shouyou is also a boy, and Kageyama is definitely not the sort of boy who goes on dates with other boys. All the girls like Kageyama, because he’s tall and handsome and has blue eyes. Kageyama-kun is so mysterious , they all say. Only Shouyou knows that Kageyama is a little stupid and a lot weird and the only reason he even has perfect hair that always smells nice is because his sister buys his shampoo.
The problem with Kageyama is that he’s just so… Kageyama. Sometimes he shouts a lot and sometimes he’s unnervingly quiet. He can be too honest but he usually doesn’t just say what he’s thinking. Yachi says that he has a lot of feelings but he struggles with communication.
kageyama do you have feelings , Hinata texted him, after she said that.
Kageyama didn’t answer. So that was that. But sometimes Shouyou suspects that he does have feelings, after all. Like, sometimes he touches Shouyou very softly when he wants to tell him something, or strokes Shouyou’s hair absently while he’s listening to someone else talk. Lately he’s been taking Shouyou’s hands and gently filing his nails for no reason at all.
“Why’re you doing that?” Shouyou asked, the first time.
He might not even have noticed Kageyama blush except that they were sitting so close together. “It’s called personal maintenance, dumbass,” he said, which didn’t really answer Shouyou’s question, but he also didn’t stop until he decided that he was finished.
And that’s not the same as having feelings , because it was still sort of about volleyball. But Shouyou doesn’t think that Kageyama would ever have done that for any of his Kitaichi teammates, or even anyone else from Karasuno. He tries to imagine Kageyama filing Tsukishima’s nails for him and cracks himself up.
So really, Shouyou thinks, if he did have a little, tiny crush on Kageyama—which he does not—it’s actually Kageyama’s fault. When he asked Hinata if he wanted to go to the park he said it like this: “I like you. Let’s go to the park.”
Which made Shouyou laugh. “You must get confessed to a lot,” he said. Poor, friendless Kageyama. He didn’t even know how to ask another guy to hang out without it sounding like something it wasn’t.
Kageyama blushed. Pretty, pretty. Had Kageyama always been pretty? Probably, Hinata decided. Even when he had been the King of the Court, except that back then he never smiled. “Of course I’ll go to the park with you, Bakageyama,” Hinata said, bumping his shoulder against Kageyama’s arm. “We’re friends, aren’t we?”
So Shouyou was lying in the grass at the park next to a statue of a bird, a heron or something, waiting for Kageyama. He had brought his volleyball, because this was not a date, so volleyball wasn’t off limits. It would be like when Daichi locked them out of the gym, but better, because he and Kageyama are friends now, and even Tsukishima isn’t quite as scary as he thinks he is.
Except that Kageyama doesn’t come. Hinata stares at the sky. He practices by himself for a bit, the way he did back in middle school. He watches a couple on a bench. The boy laughs as he puts a piece of candy into the girl’s mouth. Restless minutes turn into an anxious hour. It’s not like Kageyama to be late.
Maybe he forgot. Shouyou left his phone at home, so it’s not like he can text and ask. Thinking about Kageyama forgetting is annoying. Shouyou has been looking forward to this day for a week. They messaged about it this morning .
Unless Kageyama didn’t want to come? Unless Kageyama somehow found out about Shouyou’s stupid crush and decided that he didn’t want to be friends, after all. And Shouyou gets it, suddenly. The King of the Court thing. He would never do it, obviously, but he gets it. He thought Kageyama was different now. After a whole year of patience and teaching him high-fives and you can fly even higher .
But maybe Kageyama does think he’s better and more important than everyone else. He was the one who asked Shouyou to come to the park. Stupid Kageyama. Like, Shouyou’s crush is totally embarrassing, but they can still be friends. It’s not like Kageyama has a long list of people who want to be friends with him, on account of his horrible personality.
Shouyou doesn’t get angry much. He gets worked up and sad and frustrated—and Kageyama has been the cause of all of those emotions—but hardly ever angry. Right now he’s furious . He’s going to give Kageyama a piece of his mind next time he sees him. Even if it’s at Sakanoshita and Coach Ukai is working.
There’s only one thing he can think of that will calm him down. He gets on his bike and pedals toward Karasuno, cursing Kageyama under his breath the whole time. He’s just finished wishing eternal suffering on the seventh generation of Kageyama’s descendants when he gets to the gym.
It’s already open. Even as he’s skidding his bike to a stop, Shouyou hears the satisfying squeak-thwack-boom of Kageyama’s jump serve.
Shouyou kicks his sneakers off and slides through the doors in his socks. “Kageyama!”
Kageyama stops dead mid-serve, his toss bouncing lamely to the floor. He’s wearing his court shoes and jeans and a button-down shirt, for whatever reason. Shouyou doesn’t move as he stalks across the gym, planting himself close enough that Shouyou has to tilt his head back to meet his eyes. Jerk.
“What?” Kageyama spits.
Shouyou takes a step back instinctively. “Whoa,” he says, his brain catching up to his senses. He takes in Kageyama’s shirt, its sleeves neatly rolled up above his elbows, the fine line of his waist, his blazing blue eyes. “Your shirt matches your eyes,” he says.
It was meant as a compliment, but this only pisses Kageyama off more. He reaches out and grabs Shouyou by the front of his shirt, pulls him so close Shouyou imagines he can feel the anger radiating off him as heat. “I get it, okay?” he says. “Don’t come here just to make fun of me.”
Shouyou is decidedly not laughing. Actually, nothing about this situation is even a little bit funny. In his shock, he had forgotten to be angry, but now he’s shocked and angry. “What are you talking about? This is your fault,” he says. Kageyama is still holding onto his shirt.
And then Shouyou must blink or something, because his lips are pressed to Kageyama’s. He’s never kissed anyone before, but he knows it’s objectively a terrible kiss. The angle is bad. They’re both too stiff. Shouyou is angry at Kageyama, and Kageyama is angry at Shouyou, for some reason.
As soon as Shouyou figures out what’s going on Kageyama jerks away like he’s been burned. “Shit,” he says. “Sorry, I’m sorry.” Which is not really what you want to hear after you’ve been kissed. Shouyou makes a note to scold Kageyama about it later.
He grabs Kageyama by both wrists before he can bolt. “Kageyama, what the hell is going on right now?” Kageyama wrenches out of his grip and avoids eye contact by looking at something above Shouyou’s head. Jerk! Shouyou pokes him in the ribs, hard.
“Ow,” Kageyama says.
“Explain.”
“Why didn’t you come to the park?” Kageyama asks, which is not an explanation.
“I did! I waited by the heron statue for a whole hour!”
“It’s a crane, dumbass,” Kageyama corrects automatically. He’s lucky Shouyou likes him so much. “Why were you there?”
“That’s where we said to meet!”
Kageyama frowns even harder, if that’s possible. “No, we were supposed to meet at the statue of the little girl.”
Shouyou wishes he had his phone so he could show Kageyama the exact text where he said to meet at the bird statue. Except, now that he thinks about it— did Kageyama say that? Kageyama pulls his battered phone from his pocket and flips it open. He turns it around to show Shouyou his last sent message. Let’s meet at the statue in the park .
“Kageyama-kun,” Shouyou says slowly, “did you realize that there were two statues in the park?”
“Obviously not,” Kageyama says. “But you didn’t either, so you’re just as stupid as me,” he adds.
Shouyou pictures it. Both of them sitting under different statues, becoming angrier and angrier at the other. The last remaining frustration leaks from his body, and he laughs until his stomach hurts. Even Kageyama cracks an incredulous little smile.
So that answers that question. But then there’s still Kageyama’s shirt, and the sort-of kiss, and the fact that Kageyama is acting pretty weird. Like, weirder than normal.
“Well, we’re both here now,” Shouyou says.
“But we’re at school.”
Kageyama is so difficult sometimes. “Yes,” Shouyou says, patiently, “but we can still hang out. Like, we could practice our quick, or something.”
“What if I wasn’t good at volleyball?” Kageyama says.
“That’s a stupid question,” Shouyou says. “You are good at volleyball.” He magnanimously doesn’t even grit his teeth through the compliment.
“Yeah, but what if I wasn’t?”
“I don’t know, what if you weren’t? It’s not like you have to worry about that.” Shouyou narrows his eyes. “Unless you’re planning on slacking off.”
Kageyama rolls his eyes. “Obviously not, dumbass. I was just…wondering. You know.” He glares at Shouyou like he’s trying to convey the second half of his sentence through telepathy.
Shouyou does not, in fact, know. “Words, Kageyama.”
“Would we still be friends?” Kageyama asks, so fast and soft and mumble-y that Shouyou briefly wonders whether he’s even speaking Japanese.
“What?”
“I said,” Kageyama says, not making eye contact, “would we still be friends. If I sucked at volleyball.”
Shouyou shrugs. “Probably not.”
“Oh,” Kageyama says, sounding very small.
“Don’t get all depressed, you big baby,” Shouyou says. He shoves Kageyama’s shoulder. “We probably never would have met, that’s all.”
“And besides,” he continues, “volleyball is our thing.”
“Our thing?”
“We wouldn’t be us without volleyball,” Shouyou points out. “You and me, but also me and you.”
“That’s the same thing, dumbass,” Kageyama says, but he looks a little more cheerful. As much as Kageyama is capable of looking cheerful.
“You shouldn’t call someone a dumbass when they’re saying nice things to you,” Shouyou says. “Otherwise they won’t say more nice things to you in the future.”
Kageyama tilts his head to the side. “Like what?”
Shouyou glares at him. Stupid Kageyama. “I don’t know,” he says. He looks at the seams in the wood floor. “Like, that you’re actually kind of handsome when you’re not frowning. Or that you’re surprisingly nice sometimes and funny when you’re not trying to be. For example.”
As soon as he says them, Shouyou wants to snatch his words out of the air and stuff them back in his mouth. It feels like the time Shouyou put a towel on Kageyama’s head and called him the king or the time last summer that they fought at training camp. A turning point of sorts. Except now the ball is in Kageyama’s court, and he decides what kind of turn it’s going to be. Shouyou holds his breath.
Kageyama just frowns. “Why did all of those compliments sound like insults?”
Shouyou punches him in the arm, right above where his stupid sleeve is rolled up. “Like you could do any better, stupid!” Kageyama drives him crazy , he really does, and if Shouyou had to pick someone to like he certainly would never pick him , this whole day is so awful and confusing and Shouyou can’t wait until he can go home and scream into his pillow and never talk to Kageyama again about anything except volleyball.
Only then Kageyama sort of gathers Shouyou up in his arms and kisses him very gently on the mouth. “There,” he says.
“What?” Shouyou says. His brain feels staticky.
“You said I was handsome,” Kageyama says, defensively. His face is so red. Shouyou wants to poke his cheek, just to see what would happen. “And we’re on a date.”
“We’re at school.”
“But you said—”
“And also,” Shouyou interrupts, “you can’t just go around kissing people. There’s more steps.”
“What do you know about kissing, anyway?”
“More than you!” Shouyou counts on his fingers. “First you’re supposed to confess, then you’re supposed to go on a date, then you’re supposed to ask to hold hands, then you’re supposed to kiss.”
“I did that,” Kageyama says.
“You did not confess, I think I would remember—” I like you , is what Kageyama said. He’s wearing a nice shirt that isn’t his school uniform. “Wait. Is this a date?”
Kageyama looks just as confused as Shouyou feels. “Yes? I said I liked you and that I wanted to hang out.”
“That was a horrible confession,” Shouyou wails. “I didn’t even know it was a confession!”
“I did exactly what—” Kageyama snaps his mouth shut suddenly.
“You did exactly what ?” Shouyou says, still feeling hysterical. Kageyama tricked him, he did a trick confession, and Shouyou brought a volleyball on a date , which is pretty much the one thing his mom said that he should never do. “Kageyama, did you Google how to confess?”
“No!” Kageyama says, glaring at him. Joke’s on him—his glaring is barely scary anymore, and it’s especially not scary now that Shouyou knows that Kageyama is in gay love with him. Or gay like, or whatever. “…I asked Sugawara-san.”
Which is delightful. “Kageyama, did you seriously ask Suga-senpai for dating advice?”
“Shut up,” Kageyama mutters. “Seriously, I don’t know why I even like you.”
Shouyou feels fizzy inside, like a melon soda. Like a melon soda with ice cream on top. “Stupid,” he singsongs. He takes Kageyama’s hand and laces their fingers together. “Stupid Kageyama.”
Kageyama looks down at their hands and blushes. He really blushes easily, Shouyou thinks. “Do you, um. Do you like me back, then?”
“Duh,” Shouyou says. “Stupid Kageyama.” He feels like he’s going to float away. He feels like if he stops calling Kageyama stupid he might say something even stupider like I love you, let’s be together for the rest of our lives.
“Oh,” Kageyama says. “Good.”
Almost a year ago, Shouyou walked into this gym for the first time, feeling like he was about to walk into the rest of his life. He couldn’t have imagined how differently he would feel today, now that he’s been to nationals and kissed Kageyama.
“I brought lunch,” Kageyama says, tugging Shouyou along by the hand to the club room, bossy as ever. Shouyou hides a smile. He doesn’t let go of Shouyou’s hand as he pulls two neatly wrapped curry buns from his bag and deposits one in Shouyou’s lap. “And drink this.”
“Kageyama, did you bring yogurt to a date?”
“It’s good for you,” Kageyama says. “It has probiotics.”
Shouyou gives his hand a little squeeze, just because he likes this lame guy so much. He wants to tease, wants to say are you ever going to let me go, Kageyama-kun , but then Kageyama actually might stop holding his hand, and that would be unacceptable. “Let’s go on a real date, Kageyama,” he says instead. “Let’s go on lots of dates.”
Kageyama nods, his face relaxing into the sort-of smile he makes after Shouyou scores on a perfect set. “Okay,” he says, and Shouyou learns again just how good it feels to fly.