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When he heard the news, everything stopped. Not like at the top of a jump when he saw the view over the net; that was a good kind of slow. There was a power and a control in that kind of slow. The world always moved quickly for Hinata and when it stopped like this, it was nearly as terrifying as the news itself. He had to ask the doctor to repeat it to him three times before it really set in. To be told that he was going blind, that it was likely that in a few short months the view from the top was going to be even further out of his reach. It was more than he could bear.
Apparently the ‘thief of vision’ ran in their family. Hinata had been aware of that for most of his life. Regular eye exams were as routine for him as trips to the dentist were for others. Nothing had been detected yet but his mum was paranoid and he was never in a position to say no. Until last year, when his scheduled eye exam was on the same day as his middle school volleyball tournament, his first and only middle school volleyball game. His mum had tried to schedule another appointment but the optometrist was booked up for the rest of that month and somehow the whole matter just, slipped out of sight, out of mind. Until now.
It had been a little over two years since his last appointment, trying to fit it in around all the chaos of volleyball was tricky and while his mum cared about it, Hinata couldn’t see any problems. It wasn’t like he had noticed anything different with his vision. Sure, the light’s in the gym hurt sometimes and occasionally he didn’t see a volleyball flying at him from the side but, so what? Everyone made mistakes like that it was fine. So he kept putting it off until his mum wouldn’t let him anymore.
When his doctor said he might not lose his vision, there was a short burst of hope but, apparently the chances were slim. Nothing could reverse the damage already done to his eyes and, this part was the real kicker, if it had been detected sooner then he wouldn’t be in this mess. If they could have caught it before they started deteriorating then there were plenty of other options but, once the ball was rolling there was no stopping it. His mother cried when she heard that, Hinata knew she blamed herself for not being pushier. He blamed himself for not caring. In the end it didn’t matter whose fault it was, eye drops could only do so much and soon he’d have to say goodbye to his sight.
It had been a week since he heard and his team all knew something was wrong. He had always been too open with his emotions. He didn’t know how to tell them, didn’t want them to treat him any differently, he just wanted to enjoy volleyball as it was for as long as he still could.
There hadn’t been any real change in his eye sight the past week. He wasn’t really sure how the whole thing worked, his doctor had explained it to him but he didn’t take much of it in since he was so panicked. He kept imagine spots of vision just disappearing every day until it was all gone. His mum took notes though, he’d have to look at them some time. Being aware of what was going to happen made him hyper-aware of his vision though. When he was at home he was constantly looking to his peripherals, checking for blank spots and stifling sighs of relief when everything was still there, hazy but there.
He was caught between wishing he didn’t know what was happening to him and being so thankful that he could savour every moment. He liked to think he’d always been pretty perceptive, that’s what let him see through blocks and pinpoint the exact place to spike. It was something he took pride in, something that seemed to set him apart as a spiker even though he wasn’t as strong or as skilled as someone like Asahi or Iwaizumi. It was part of what made him who he was and, he hated feeling like that was slipping away. Once that was gone, who would he be?
He was hesitantly optimistic today though, his doctor called that morning and wanted him to come in this afternoon to discuss something. So he’d bailed on practise early, and if his weird behaviour didn’t tip the team off about something wrong that certainly did. Currently, he was kicking his feet in a too hard chair after waiting for fifteen minutes.
“I could’ve finished practise,” Hinata grumbled, tapping his head against the wall behind him.
“If he was on time you couldn’t have,” his mum replied, not looking up from the fifth magazine she was flicking through. He didn’t think she was actually reading any of it, the pages turned too quickly.
“Yeah but he’s not, and I could’ve finished practise. If he couldn’t actually see me at 4 he shouldn’t have told me to be here at 4.”
“I’m sure something just came up Shouyou. Please be patient, I’m sure…”
“Hinata Shouyou?” Dr Amaretto called as he finally emerged from the hallway. Hinata called out ‘here’ and leapt up. If this was over with quickly maybe he could just catch the team getting meat buns. Although, then he’d have to explain where he went and he wanted to put off that conversation for as long as possible.
The seats in the doctor’s office were no better than the ones in the waiting room, and at least out there they didn’t decorate the walls with symptoms of diseases. It was worse than Web MD. Kageyama didn’t let him go on there ever since he’d got a small pain in his knee and decided his ACL ligament was snapped and oh, he had cancer. Fortunately no, he was just going blind. Maybe if he’d been allowed on Web MD he would’ve seen it coming. Probably not.
“So, have you noticed any changes?” Dr Amaretto asked, swivelling in his office chair to face the computer, his fingers poised over the keys waiting for a response. Hinata just looked at his mum waiting for her to speak but she stayed silent, giving him a small nudge when he’d taken too long to answer.
“Oh um, no.” Hinata said. Somehow from that Dr Amaretto got half a paragraph typed out while Hinata and his mum sat silent and waiting.
“OK,” he started, pausing while he finished typing his last sentence. “That’s good. Have you been applying your eye drops correctly? Three times a day?”
“I forgot at lunch once, it’s tricky at school. But otherwise yeah.”
“Can you have a friend remind you? You’re on the volleyball team right? One of the team members?”
“None of my friends know.”
“You should.” For the first time since the waiting room Dr Amaretto turned to face him as he spoke. “It’s good to have support through such difficult times.”
“I’m not dying, I’m just going blind.” Hinata folded his arms with a pout. Both the doctor and his mum sighed in unison, it was eerie and he knew immediately that when they left he’d hear that fun question ‘do you mind if I talk to your mother alone for a minute?’ and have to go back to the waiting room while they discussed his ‘poor attitude’ and ‘difficult nature’. No one had ever used those words to describe him before this whole mess.
“Well, I called you in today to discuss another treatment option for your eyes.”
“What?” Hinata shot forward in his seat, his heart sped up as he waited for an answer searching his doctor’s face for hope. This was it, his hesitant optimism was worth it.
“Surgery. It’d be a relatively simple procedure, trying to stop the fluid build-up so as to take some of the pressure off your eyes to slow the decline of your vision.”
“So it wouldn’t, fix my eyes then?” Hinata slumped back, all the glory and excitement of before fading away in an instant. Brought up so high to crash to so low. “Just like the drops it’d just be a temporary thing?”
“How much would it cost?” Hinata’s mother asked. Hinata bit his lip, ever since his Dad had left money had been tight. Volleyball gear wasn’t cheap and now, all these doctors’ visits and expensive eye drops weren’t helping.
“A lot. But, if you’d like we can talk over options to help you cover it.”
“Can you guarantee I’ll be able to see until the end of high school?” Hinata asked. He sat up in his chair and put on his ‘take me seriously’ face. “Will this let me play volleyball until I graduate?”
Dr Amaretto took a deep breath, his elbows settled on his knees while he laced his fingers together. He leaned forward as he spoke. “There are no guarantees…”
“I don’t want it,” Hinata stated. “I won’t. I’m not going to.”
“Hear him out Shouyou,” his mum said.
“No,” Hinata slapped his hand against the arm of his chair, the sound was louder than expected, a judge’s gavel setting the verdict in stone. “If it’s expensive, and it won’t necessarily keep me playing volleyball then I’m not doing it. If that’s the only option, I’m not doing it.”
He bit back everything else he wanted to say in his anger, how it’s not fair, that this shouldn’t be happening that he didn’t deserve this. Or on the other hand how he wanted to take back what he’d said and say ‘yes I’ll do it, I’ll do anything, take any chance just let me see’. But at the bottom of it he wouldn’t be that selfish, wouldn’t put his mother through even more pain because of his focus on volleyball. He had to think of his sister too, she was started to get interested in ballet and those lessons weren’t going to be free. At the end of the day the surgery wouldn’t help, nothing would. It would just prolong the nauseating fear that had settled in his gut since he heard the news. They couldn’t afford it, he knew that. His dream was over and he refused to rob Natsu of hers.
Dr Amaretto sighed, resting his chin on his interlaced hands. Hinata’s mother lifted herself out of her seat, she seemed to be struggling with the weight of it all on her shoulders and Hinata didn’t know how to help. He was trying so hard though.
“Thank you for the offer doctor, but I have to do what’s best for my son. If he doesn’t want this surgery, if it will only give him false hope, then we’ll stick with the eye drops and we’ll hope that he can make it to the end of the school year.”
“I understand. But I warn you again that there is a high chance that his vision won’t hold out.”
Hinata thought about telling him not to talk about him like he wasn’t there, thought about giving an impassioned speech about how he’d defeat the odds because that’s what he did. But all of a sudden he was tired, his hesitant optimism had done nothing for him and now he was spiralling into that terrifying stage of grief, acceptance.
“I just want to go home,” he murmured.
For the first time in eight years, his mother took his hand in hers and he didn’t complain. She went through the niceties with Dr Amaretto, checked Hinata’s regular bookings with the receptionist and then led him out to the car. Only once he was settled in the passenger seat did she let go. Their drive was silent. Their drive also wasn’t supposed to take them past Coach Ukai’s shop but he hadn’t noticed her taking the detour until it was too late. He saw his team outside and went to duck but, of course, Noya saw him and started waving which made everyone turn to look.
“Mum, I…”
“They’ve seen you now Sho, it’d be rude not to say hi.” His mum had that glint in her eyes she only got when she was too pleased with herself.
“I told you, I don’t want to tell them.” He said as she pulled in to park across the road from them.
“And I don’t expect you to until you’re ready, but don’t push them away. They’re your team, they’re there to support you whenever and however you fall. Go enjoy some normalcy for a bit, I’ll wait here so you don’t have to stay too long, but go say hi, go get a meat bun and I’ll read for a while.” She said, flicking the car ignition off. She reached behind to the backseat and pulled out a novel. It was nearly a surprise to see her with one since all she’d been reading for the past week were books with titles all along the lines of ‘how to cope with your child’s imminent blindness’.
Hinata turned to his team and saw them all waiting for him, Noya still waving and he had Tanaka on board now too. He’d miss seeing their antics. He really didn’t want to make a list of things that he was going to miss but it was happening all on its own.
“Thanks mum,” he darted out of the car and across the road, slapping Noya with a high-five and fitting in seamlessly with the conversation. An excuse here about his mum needing his help, an excuse there about not being able to stay long and no one pressed him on his absence. His fears of an interrogation were completely unfounded. Of course, he still felt Kageyama’s gaze on him, and Daichi’s and Suga’s for that matter. He knew that eventually he’d have to answer their questions but he was glad he had this time, these jokes, the street lamps and stars lighting his friends’ smiles. This time to be part of the team.
It’s not even his peripheral vision that goes first. Although that’s obviously on its way out now, he sometimes misses a volleyball flying at him from the side completely now. No one thinks there’s anything weird about that though, he’s plenty used to getting whacked in the face during practise. His problem is stairs. He keeps getting his feet in the wrong place and tripping going up, and going down is becoming a big problem since he can’t quite work out where his foot will meet the step. He’s taken a few tumbles but, he always bounces. After searching his mum’s notes from that first doctor’s appointment it looks like his depth perception is going. Which is bad and cause for a trip back to Dr Amaretto. Or it would if he could work up the courage to tell his mum.
Every single day she asks how his sight is doing, even Natsu has taken to asking him even though he doesn’t think she understands what’s happening, she always looks so worried and then, the relief when he says it’s OK. He can’t hide it forever, he knows that but, he really wants his vision to hold out until the end of the school year. Mostly he just wants it to last to the end of the volleyball season.
If he’s being honest with himself he should have told her two weeks ago, that’s when all the stairs stuff started but he thought he was just over excited about training camp, moving too quickly or something. It was easy to convince himself of that. If he had told her then there would’ve been a chain reaction; she’d call the school to inform the teachers, Takeda would definitely find out, he’d tell Ukai, Ukai would treat him differently, the team would find out, he wouldn’t be able to go to the training camp. At least he’d been allowed to go for that. At least he’d got to practise spiking with Bokuto, see his infamous hairstyle and over enthusiasm, at least he’d got to play games with Kenma, at least he’d got to see more of Lev’s crazy whip spike, at least he had a hundred and one new memories to hold to his heart of playing volleyball and being happy. Not that it wasn’t stressful as hell because of the upcoming tournament, or like he didn’t make a hundred and one mistakes that had the team doing dive receives for hours.
He should tell his mum that it’s getting worse. But he should also tell his team. If his eyesight was deteriorating this quickly then he may not making it to the Spring Tournament and they couldn’t plan their plays around he and Kageyama’s quick. He just hoped that they’d let him keep playing, that Kageyama would keep tossing to him even though he was no longer essential to winning.
That revelation, the guilt of letting his team down if he didn’t tell them, led him here. Outside the gym, last one in, volleyball in hand because he found it soothing and just catching Ukai before he walked inside. The words ‘I have to tell you something’ had been out of his mouth before he’d really thought through how to go about it. Which is probably why he’d immediately blurted out ‘I’m going blind’ before giving Ukai a chance to react to the first statement. At first he thought it was a strange joke and once he realised it wasn’t, once he found out Hinata had known for over a month without telling the team, he was understandably angry.
It was a kind of anger that Hinata recognised though. It was the same kind that, a few nights after his diagnosis, drove his mother to throw a baking tray to the ground so hard a chip of their kitchen floor went flying. It had taken him awhile to realise that the anger wasn’t directed at him, despite all the mistakes he had made, but at the whole damn situation. It was anger at helplessness, it was anger at not being able to change anything no matter how much you want to. And even though he knew all this, knew that it wasn’t his fault, he still flinched away. He still pushed down on a well of emotion inside himself that he couldn’t afford to spring free because he wasn’t the only person hurting.
Moments later he found himself in the gym, Ukai’s hand clamped on his shoulder and the sounds of volleyball slowly stopping as people took notice of Ukai’s teary face and gritted teeth. In the end it was Daichi who called everyone together, Ukai couldn’t seem to get the words out. Hinata had always known he would have to tell them but now the moment was here it was so damn hard. Looking at his team, really looking at them to piece it all together in a photo in his mind he’d never forget he realised just how much he was going to lose. That list he didn’t want to write kept getting longer. He’d never see any of them grow older. He’d never see what crazy hairstyle Noya tried next. He wouldn’t see the third-years graduate. He wouldn’t see Kageyama finally learn to smile properly jeez was it really so hard. He’d never see Yachi gain her confidence. He wouldn’t be able to see Yamaguchi’s perfected float serve. He wasn’t just losing his sight, he was losing every moment he desperately wanted to be a part of.
“I don’t really know, how I’m supposed to say this,” Hinata started, his voice was stronger than he’d expected and he was grateful.
“Are you leaving the school?” Tanaka demanded.
“Yeah! Are you going to play a different sport?” Nishinoya asked.
“Do you want a different setter?” Kageyama asked, his face strangely contorted.
“Did you injure your knee like Oikawa? The other day he was saying his jumps really put a lot of pressure on it,” Suga asked.
“Why were you talking to Oikawa the other day?” Daichi
“Did you fail a test and now your teacher won’t let you go to the Spring Tournament?” Ennoshita asked, of the questions that was probably the most reasonable which may be why Hinata flinched at that one.
“No I’m not leaving, I’m not playing any other sport, Suga may be nicer than you sometimes but you’re my favourite setter, my knee is fine, I think. My grades are, terrible but that’s not the point.” Hinata rushed out, trying to stop them before their ideas got any more chaotic than they already were. “I’m just, I’ve…sorry this is scarier than going to the bathroom before a game. I don’t want you to be mad, I should’ve told you when I found out but I didn’t want to stop playing I never want to stop playing. I feel more at home on the court with all of you than anywhere else and I don’t want to lose that but, I’m going blind.”
With the rush of questions beforehand Hinata had expected outrage, a call to arms of some sort or, something. Anything but this silence and shock and the pain on all of their faces. He didn’t want to bring them pain, they’ve been his team, his support for so long until now. Until now because now some cruel twist of fate has shoved him apart from then and he can no longer keep up and they can’t help him.
Yamaguchi was the one who snapped out of the shock first. He walked up to Hinata, who really had no idea what to expect, and placed his hand on his shoulder. From most people the gesture usually felt patronising, but somehow when Yamaguchi did it, it felt sincere.
“That really fucking sucks,” Yamaguchi said finally. And in the severity of the situation, in his fears about coping with their apologies or anger, that one sentence was perfect. Even though Daichi looked horrified.
Hinata burst out laughing, it bubbled up inside of and spilled outwards filling the gym with a joy that banished the solemn mood from before like a patronus clearing away the dementors. “Did you learn how to comfort people from Tsukki?” He gasped out the question through the laughter that just wouldn’t seem to stop.
Tsukishima didn’t even protest, and maybe Hinata was going mad as well as blind but he could’ve sworn he smiled.
With the tension broken all of a sudden it was like nothing had changed, like he hadn’t just driven a massive wedge between himself and everyone else. As he explained what was happening to him, since Daichi asked, that wedge started to dissipate completely. Noya and Tanaka leapt off to his peripherals asking if he could see them (he couldn’t). Tsukki cracked a joke about not having the worst eyesight on the team anymore. Ennoshita promised they’d describe every game in great detail for him. Suga wanted to know the exact time Hinata was supposed to take his midday eye drops so he could send him daily reminders. Everyone seemed to just take it in their stride, they were obviously still shocked, they were human after all, but they were coping.
“Right, don’t overwhelm him.” Ukai stated, Hinata smiled to himself as he saw Daichi’s mouth snap shut and he somehow just knew that he was about to say the same thing. Ukai set some drills and the team dispersed until it was just Kageyama and Hinata standing together.
“I guess we should get as many tosses in as we can?” Hinata sent him a grin but it faltered when he saw how troubled Kageyama looked. “You look constipated, are you OK?”
“I should have noticed something,” Kageyama gripped at the volleyball so hard Hinata was worried it was going to pop. “I knew you were missing more, I saw you close your eyes a couple of times and I did nothing, I said nothing I should have noticed something was wrong.”
Hinata took a deep breath and tried, for once, to find the words he wanted before he spoke because he did not want to screw this up, especially with Kageyama who was a master at beating himself up for his mistakes. A crown is a heavy burden to bear and it seemed as though he just couldn’t put it aside. This time, he had to get it right. He couldn’t help his mum but he would not let Kageyama carry the weight of his mistakes too.
“I was supposed to go see the doctor once a year and I skipped one session and refused to go because I thought it was a waste of time. I have been supposed to put eye drops in three times a day without fail and some days I’ve just forgotten completely. There was a surgery, a simple but expensive procedure that I could’ve done but I didn’t because I chose not to. If we’re going to put blame on anyone it’s all on me. And I am trying really hard to get past that but I won’t. I know how much it hurts to blame yourself so please don’t do it too when you don’t understand how much it hurts to know that I could’ve stopped this but I didn’t.” Hinata hated that his voice was breaking, he wanted to be strong, he wanted things to be normal, he wanted everything to be OK. So before Kageyama could reply, before whatever pity would spill from his lips could come forth he said the only thing he knew would fix things. “So, are you going to toss for me or what?”
Kageyama shrugged in that way of his that was all like ‘I don’t really care but, if it makes you happy I suppose’ but also ‘if it’ll make you happy, I’m happy’. So much of Kageyama’s communication was unspoken, it was like he was afraid of the finality of spoken word. Like, if he conveyed feelings through gesture then people would only find them if they knew him well enough or if they wanted them. It was a defence mechanism. Hinata tried not to think about how they’d cope when he could no longer see all the meanings beneath his movements, shaking his head he ran forward and spiked the ball over the other side of the net as hard as he could. He kept his eyes open the whole time.
When he admits to his mother that his vision is getting worse, she calls the school. There’s a flurry of meetings as bad as all of his doctor’s appointments (he has plenty more of those too, all slotted around volleyball practise). His teachers are understandable worried about accommodating for a blind student, there’s talk of him having to change schools but his mother pleads for another way. It’s enough that he’s losing his vision, she doesn’t want him to lose all his stability too.
It takes time but in the end it’s decided he’ll be allowed to stay, at least through to the end of the year. They have enough forewarning to start gathering braille materials, they have a teacher who has worked with blind students in the past and is willing to help him and of course, there’s his team. Hinata didn’t know how they managed to find out the exact time of his meetings but they do and they show up to every single one, promising to help him with work, with getting around, with anything he could possibly need. By the end of the year they’ll have an evaluation and see if it’s working out but, with all of the support, his teachers think it should be possible.
The worst thing is that Hinata has to start practising with a cane. He thinks it’s the dumbest thing ever, people stare at him when he has it at school and he knows it’ll be even worse soon but at least he won’t be able to see them watching then. He tried to leave it in the gym once after morning practise so he could go a day without being watched but Suga chases after him and he gets a long lecture about responsibility and looking after himself.
It’s a couple days later after cleaning up after practise, waiting for Hinata’s mother since she’s too nervous to let him bike without peripheral vision, when Hinata stumbled forward grasping at nothing as he tried to stay balanced. Kageyama’s reflexes were all that kept him from falling, his arms going round him and pulling him back up. Neither of them moved for a while after that, Kageyama’s arms warm and solid around Hinata and his heart racing in his chest. But eventually Hinata slid out of his grasp and bit down hard on his lip.
“I was supposed to surpass you,” Hinata whispered. It had been playing on his mind for a while now, ever since he wondered how he and Kageyama would get on once he couldn’t see. Ever since he’d realised how much it would hurt to lose him in his life. Ever since he’d sat bolt upright one day struck by the rather inconvenient epiphany that losing Kageyama would be worse than losing his vision.
“You could say thank you,” Kageyama muttered.
“That’s the thing.” Hinata shook his head, tearing a hand through his hair with his lip caught in his teeth again. “I accepted that maybe I wasn’t going to surpass you, because you were my partner and I don’t really know if I want to fight on the other side of the court anymore. But now, I know I’m losing all this stuff but what hurts the most is knowing that I’m losing the view from the top, the view I get when I’m with you.”
Hinata ends his speech with a shrug and Kageyama is silent for a long time as he stared down at his feet.
“I’m losing that to,” Kageyama said finally. “I don’t get to see the top, I only know what that feels like because of you. Another spiker can describe it but it won’t, you know, it won’t be you. It’s your view that matters to me.”
Hinata was worried he was reading the blush on Kageyama’s cheeks wrong, worried that he heard too much in Kageyama’s words but then again, he knew that he always meant what he said. It felt like it was now or never and he could always pass it off as a heat of the moment thing. He just, wanted to hold Kageyama’s hand at least once when he could still, see his hand to grab it. So he did, and he was surprised but how well their hands fit together. It was surprising how nicely Kageyama’s fingers slipped between his and how warm his hands were, even though most of the heat had gone from the day already.
“You make me feel invincible,” Hinata admitted. He was rewarded with the blush that burst across Kageyama’s face and right up to the tip of his ears.
Kageyama opened and closed his mouth a few times but it was as though he’d used all his wise words already. Hinata saw him rock his shoulders back like he did before facing Aoba Josai and that was all the warning he had before Kageyama took his chin in his hand, tilted his head up and his lips crashed over Hinata’s own. It was a soft kiss, as warm and sweet as the feeling of Kageyama’s hand in his but amplified. It was an exhilarating kiss, his heart was pounding as loud and hard as one of his spikes in the middle of a tough set. It was a welcome kiss, like falling into a group hug on the floor of the court after a tricky win. It was sweet, like Kageyama’s attempts at smiles and his laughter at Hinata’s jokes. It was them and it was this moment and it was every moment and it was perfect.
There was a small cough and the two broke apart blushing furiously when they saw Hinata’s mother standing by her car with an all too knowing smirk. Still bright red Hinata clutched Kageyama’s hand tighter, taking in exactly how he looked all nervous and happy and red and knowing that if nothing else he had to remember this sight right here.
“I’ll text you,” Hinata said as he let go of Kageyama’s hand and dashed off to the car, he missed the door handle on the first try but he eventually slid into his seat and waved at Kageyama until he was out of sight and then he pulled out his phone to send him a text.
“So…” Hinata’s mother started as they started up the slow climb home. “Do I need to give you the talk?”
Hinata wondered to himself how much it would hurt to tuck and roll out of a moving car.
He always thought that even if he was going blind, it could at least happen in a cool way. That it’d happen during Spring Nationals; they’ve made it to the end and he hits the winning spike and as the cheers erupt his sight just, blinks out like the end of an old movie. And that would suck but, the last thing he’d see would be Kageyama’s proud smile and his world may be dark but it’d be full of cheers and applause. It never crossed his mind that it would be altogether unceremonious, three days before the first game of the tournament and suddenly his world was just, blurry. That was anti-climactic too, he expected darkness but what he got instead was, more like what happens when you close your eyes and hold your palms against them for too long. His peripherals were completely gone but everything else was just shapeless. It felt like if he just squinted or looked harder everything would come into focus, he’d see again but, as hard as he tried nothing changed.
“Mum,” he cried from his room, his breathing was too heavy now, he closed his eyes and tried to calm down but he couldn’t. Knowing this would happen hadn’t helped at all and he was so afraid.
“Shouyou?” He felt his mother’s arms go around him and he curled up against her as she rubbed his back and shushed him, rocking him slightly like she used to when he had nightmares.
“It’s gone,” he hiccupped, “I didn’t think it’d actually happen but I can’t see Mum, it’s gone.”
“Oh honey,” she pressed a kiss to his forehead and held him close, “I’m sorry.”
He’d spent the whole ordeal trying to be strong, trying not to put any more pressure on his mum than he already had but here he was breaking and at his lowest point he found the true depth of his mother’s strength. Her voice was still steady and strong as she told him how brave he was, how he would adjust, how sorry she was over and over again how sorry she was. He didn’t know how long she held him as he sobbed but he was so grateful.
“You don’t have to go to school today if you’re not up to it,” she said, her breath tickled his hair as she tried to smooth it down.
“I want to go, I want to…” Hinata choked as he realised he was about to say ‘see everyone’. He also realised how ridiculous it was to go to a whole day of school, how difficult it had been with partial vision and how impossible it would be now. Sure his teachers had said they’d accommodate but he wanted to get used to his new world first. “I want to go to practise.”
“Are you sure?”
“I just want to…tell the team that it’s happened, in person.”
“If you’re sure you’ll be up to it. Afternoon practise right? Spend some more time practising with the cane today OK? I’ll drive you later. I’ll go get breakfast ready, can you make it to the kitchen on your own or…” Her offer to help him hung unspoken, he reached out to where he knew she was and she took his hand in her own and they made their way slowly to the lounge. She sat him down on the couch and chatted to him from the kitchen, she turned music on the radio and made every movement in the kitchen extra loud. It took him awhile to work out, but he realised she was trying to compensate, to fill in the gaps in his world with sound where sight should be and his heart felt so big he thought it’d burst.
She took the day off work. A friend of hers took Natsu to school, she didn’t want to go and Hinata thought about asking if she could stay but his mum was adamant that routine would be followed as close as possible. She cooked him pancakes for lunch, read him bits of the book she’d been reading, chatted to him about old family memories and when he started crying for the second time that day because oh god why was this so hard, she held him close and pressed her chin atop his head until he could breathe again.
When she took him to practise that afternoon, everyone had guessed what happened. That didn’t mean any of them wanted to be right though. Hinata thought Noya might have cried but, he couldn’t see him to be sure and no one would tell him if he was right or not. He knows his mum and Suga went off to the side to chat and he was left with the rest of the team. There were lots of apologies, lots of talk about how much it sucked and Hinata thought he might cry for the third time that day. But before he got the chance, Kageyama wrapped his pinky finger around his.
“Do you want me to toss to you or what?” Kageyama asked. There was a lot of spluttering from the team, Hinata was pretty sure that was Daichi asking if he was crazy or just insensitive. “Well you’re at practise aren’t you, do you want a toss or not?”
“Um, I don’t know how to tell you this but I can’t see.” Hinata tried to keep his voice light and teasing but he mostly just sounded confused even to himself.
“Just run, just jump, I’ll get the ball to you.” Kageyama’s voice was so full of faith, so determined and passionate that Hinata just wished he could see his damn face. Or that they weren’
“Isn’t a little dangerous to tell a blind man to just run and jump?” Hinata teased, but he allowed Kageyama to guide him to what he assumed was somewhere safe in the gym.
“Run straight ahead.” Kageyama ignored the teasing, he was in the zone. “If you don’t get it, it’s not your fault it was my toss.”
“I think it’s my lack of eyesight.” Hinata dropped into position though and got ready to run.
“Go.”
And he did, his feet pushed off the ground and he pounded forward. He didn’t care what Kageyama said, if he didn’t make this shot he would never spike again. He knew why he was doing this, to show him that he was still a part of the team, that they were still partners, that it was OK. But this was it, this was his farewell to the sport that he loved, this was his thank you to Kageyama, this was his pride and this was a fitting ending. He didn’t get his nationals moment but he had this, he had his court beneath his feet and a toss to hit. How fitting it should end like it began. And so, putting a whole new level of meaning in blind faith, he jumped.
Kageyama knew that Hinata would hit it, he knew he would because he had to. He watched the ball arc through the air with perfect trajectory. His breath caught in his throat and tears welled in eyes as the ball hit the opposite side of the court. The sound of a perfect spike echoing through the gym, an impossible spike that made his heart go ‘gwah’. Or maybe that was just the impossible boy before him, turning the way he always did, with eyes closed tight and a grin that took up half his face despite the tears that rolled down his cheeks.
Hinata whispered his thanks in the quiet after the spike. Then the cheering began, their team hollering and stamping their feet. He could hear Tanaka crying shamelessly, felt Noya barrel into him for a hug, soon after followed by the rest of the team. Everyone congratulating him, even Tsukishima finding it in himself to say ‘nice kill’. And in all the chaos Kageyama’s hand found his and he held it tight. It wasn’t winning nationals, it wasn’t the glory of standing in the Little Giant’s place with the view from the top, but this, this was his heroic ending, better than he could even dream of.