Chapter Text
“They look fine,” his mother said, examining the cakes. “They’re… a little lopsided. But they look fine.”
Tobio frowned. He imagined giving the cakes to Shouyou and having him wrinkle his nose. These are all lopsided, he imagined Shouyou saying. Did you even try?
He had tried. These lopsided mini lava cakes were a second attempt, with his mother’s supervision. She kept kissing his forehead and smiling in a soft, proud way that embarrassed him, so it hadn’t been easy.
“I’m so proud of you,” she said, for maybe the thousandth time. His shoulders crept higher.
“You don’t have to say that over and over,” he mumbled.
“It’s so hard not to! And your dad will be proud too. He can taste one, can’t he? One of the wonky ones.”
Tobio nodded, his body feeling a little stiff. His father had accepted his relationship with Shouyou, but things were still pretty awkward between them. He’d never had a talent for speaking to his father in the first place, and it had been mutual; now there was just a little bit more distance than before.
His mother insisted it wasn’t a bad distance. She said it was because his father was an idiot who never knew what to say, which was something Tobio could relate to—the not knowing what to say part, anyway.
“Okay,” his mother said, leaning flour-whitened hands against the countertop. “Are these good enough, or do they have to be perfect?”
“They’re good enough,” he said. He couldn’t handle the thought of his mother pressing kisses to his forehead and saying how proud she was for another hour. If Shouyou made a fuss about their irregular shapes, he’d just pull his hair and yell at him.
It was a good plan.
The next morning didn’t go as expected.
There was no morning practice in light of nationals being over—they didn’t practice every morning now, though Shouyou talked him into spiking practice on their off days more often than not—and when Tobio got to school he was ambushed by a small brown-haired girl wanting to talk to him alone before he could even spot Shouyou among the students.
He kicked himself mentally for not arranging to meet Shouyou before class. The girl pulled him aside, to a little courtyard.
“I’d like to get to know you,” she said after a rushed confession, holding out a colorful box, and he’d already forgotten her name and what class she was from. He knew he was stone-faced, but he wasn’t sure what to do. Did he accept the chocolates? Did he decline them outright? He’d just spent ages on the ones he made for Shouyou; it seemed really unfair either way, since he couldn’t return her feelings.
“I’m sorry,” he said stiffly, and wasn’t quite prepared for her to thrust the small, ribbon-wrapped box into his hands and run off. He stared after, wondering if he’d done it wrong.
“Kageyama!” someone walking up to the school yelled, and he spotted Sugawara in the crowd of students. He walked back out of the courtyard, relieved to see a friendly face.
“Did I just see you reject someone?” Sugawara asked once he was close.
Tobio nodded jerkily. “I think I did it wrong. How are you supposed to say no?”
“Hmm… I think it’s good to assess how serious the girl is. Some, it’s a shot in the dark. Others…”
Tobio swallowed.
“Well, there’s no nice way to reject someone, is there? I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”
Sugawara clapped him on the shoulder and walked away, and Tobio stared after. Figure it out? He didn’t even know how to talk to girls who weren’t Natsu or into volleyball, let alone girls trying to confess to him.
And where was Shouyou?
There was another confession at the lockers, to the side—this girl giggled and turned red, which was a weird reaction to rejection—and Tobio resolved not to be caught alone again. He hid in the boy’s toilet when he saw another girl approach him purposefully on his way to class, and didn’t emerge until the bell went, the chocolate cakes he’d made yesterday heavy in his bag. He’d failed at Valentine’s Day so far; they hadn’t talked about this since that first day last October, when Shouyou came over to play video games, but he’d been able to tell Shouyou was excited this week, or at least more excited than usual. If Tobio didn’t manage this it would just be another reason Shouyou would be better off with a girl.
He glared all the way through math class.
“Shouyou!” he shouted when it was finally break and he saw his prey—no, boyfriend, still boyfriend, not prey—in the hallway, talking with classmates. Shouyou turned and jumped a little at his expression.
“What?” Shouyou asked, his shoulders high.
“What do you mean what?”
“Why do you look like you’re going to kill me?”
Tobio blinked. Wasn’t he expecting to get chocolate? Wasn’t it obvious what Tobio was trying to do—what he didn’t quite have the courage to do in front of Shouyou’s friends, whose names and faces were still a blur in his mind?
“Lunch,” he said.
Shouyou’s classmates eyed him warily, looking like they might want to step in. Tobio blinked at them. Shouyou must have recognized his dumbfounded expression because he started dragging Tobio away, waving a casual goodbye at his friends.
“Outside,” Tobio mumbled, looking out over the heads of his classmates, many of them looking skittish or excited. He spotted the girl who’d tried to approach him earlier, and increased his pace; when he saw Shouyou was following, he flat-out ran, pausing only to put on outdoor shoes. After that he didn’t stop until they were around the back of the gym, out of sight of the school. Shouyou bent double, catching his breath.
“That doesn’t count as a win because I didn’t know where we were going.”
Tobio pursed his lips. “I wasn’t trying to win. I was trying to get away. Girls keep confessing to me.”
Shouyou unbent to glare at him. “Oh, how horrible. Must be so hard to be liked—”
“It is horrible!”
“Yeah, yeah,” Shouyou said, as Tobio rooted for the box of cakes in his bag. It was a little battered at the edges, but still in one piece; he thrust it out at Shouyou.
Shouyou stared. “What’s that?”
“Valentine’s chocolate.”
There was another moment of silence—something that almost looked like pleasure flickered over Shouyou’s face—and then:
“You’re supposed to say something!” he said, before gesturing and pitching his voice high like a girl’s. “Hinata-kun, I like you, please go out with me!”
A flush crept up Tobio’s neck. “That’s for people who aren’t together yet!”
Shouyou’s lips pressed together in a pout.
“Fine, fine!” Tobio said. “Dumbass-kun, I like you, please continue going out with me.”
Shouyou laughed, the serious expression disappearing as he grabbed the box from Tobio’s hands. Cold February wind ruffled his hair, but his face was all sunshine, his grin wide as he plopped down onto the grass to open the box, heedless of the slight damp that was sure to make his uniform muddy.
“Wow,” he said when he looked inside, not seeming to notice the lopsidedness of the cakes. He ate half of one in a bite and stared up, saying something that sounded like good through his mouthful.
“Chew, dumbass!”
“Thee a’ amazing!”
Tobio sat down too, very fast. He wanted to say something disparaging but his mind was a blank; all he could see was the clear delight on Shouyou’s face, even if he looked stupid with chocolate sauce bracketing his mouth, getting worse as he stuffed another cake in his face.
It felt weird to like someone this much—even being allowed to like someone this much. It was still a little scary, and now and then he was afraid it might slip through his fingers, but every time they were on the court together it was like the ground steadied beneath him.
They were a team.
“Why are you looking like that?” Shouyou asked, his head tilting to the side—a curious bird with a chocolate beak. Tobio grabbed his head and pushed it down, embarrassed.
“Wipe your mouth at least!”
“You wipe it!”
Shouyou launched himself forward, bowling Tobio over onto the damp grass. He rubbed his face against Tobio’s, spreading the mess, hands warm through the front of Tobio’s uniform. Tobio managed to fend him off enough to plant his hands on either side of Shouyou’s face, his thumbs and index fingers keeping him at a distance.
Shouyou was grinning, the chocolate smeared; Tobio had to look away.
“You like me,” Shouyou said.
“Obviously.”
“I like you, too.”
Tobio felt like he might sink into the soil. What was he supposed to say to that? “Good.”
Shouyou snorted and sat up, not seeming to notice he was half straddling him, his eyes falling back on the box of cakes. “I’m going to have another—”
Tobio caught his arm before he could reach. “Eat your lunch.”
“After.”
“Before.”
“Fine.”
Tobio let go, and Shouyou got up. He picked up his bag and began eating—resentfully, casting longing glances at the box of cakes. Tobio pulled out his lunch, too, despite the fact that it was way too cold to be eating outside. His butt was cold and damp from the grass.
“So who was it that confessed to you?” Shouyou asked between bites.
“I don’t know.”
“At all?”
“I think one of them might have been in my class?”
Shouyou laughed. “You’re hopeless.”
“I never said I was good at this stuff!”
“Don’t tell Noya-san or Tanaka-san that people confessed to you and you forgot who they were.”
“I wasn’t planning to. Sugawara-san saw me, though.”
Shouyou’s hand holding the chopsticks lowered to his lunchbox thoughtfully, and he got a weird look in his eyes. “I wonder if the others are getting confessions?”
“What does it matter?”
Suddenly, Shouyou was packing his stuff back in his bag, beginning to run. “I want to see!”
“Shouyou! Wait—” Tobio huffed, cramming his lunchbox into his backpack and running after Shouyou, back into the busy school.
“I don’t care about Tsukishima getting confessions, but I want to see if Tanaka-san does,” Shouyou said, bending over to put his indoor shoes on again. “Or the others!”
“Why would Tsukishima get confessions?”
Shouyou shrugged. “Because he’s tall?” He started to walk up the stairs, but halted when a feminine voice shouted Hinata-kun.
Tobio looked around, expecting to see Yachi or Kiyoko—but it was neither one of them. Instead it was a girl he didn’t recognize, slightly taller than Shouyou with long black hair. He felt his stomach clench, even though Shouyou just looked surprised.
“Yes?” Shouyou said, standing on the bottom step.
“Um,” the girl said, stopping next to Tobio. She was stalwartly ignoring him, looking only at Shouyou. “I, um…”
Tobio wondered if he ought to move away, but the girl still didn’t seem aware of him. She conjured a box from her skirt—that skirt has pockets?—and held it out with both hands, bowing slightly. “Please accept—!”
“Accept?” Shouyou said, looking dumbfounded.
“My feelings,” she said breathlessly.
Tobio definitely should have moved away. He felt a weight in his stomach, knowing how much Shouyou would love being confessed to—except Shouyou still wasn’t smiling.
“Oh,” he said.
“I saw you at nationals,” the girl squeaked, her bravery seeming to fade in the face of his continued confusion.
Tobio was prepared for Shouyou to smile, then—he loved it when people were impressed with his volleyball skills—but instead Shouyou bowed, his hands stiff at his sides.
“I’m sorry!” he shouted. “I’m already dating someone I like very much!”
Tobio flushed, even as the girl’s face fell.
“O-oh!” she said. “I’m sorry!”
They faced each other, both looking like they’d forgotten how to breathe, and after a murmured excuse the girl dipped her head and left, looking supremely embarrassed. Shouyou stared after her.
“Did you see that?” he asked, as if Tobio could have missed it.
“Why aren’t you happier?”
“I don’t know,” Shouyou said, blinking. “I guess it’s not as great as I thought after all. I can’t believe someone actually confessed to me.”
“That’s stupid,” Tobio said, because it was. He knew people were shortsighted and superficial, but anyone who’d seen Shouyou on the court would know how amazing he was; he’d known that even when he hadn’t wanted to admit to it. “Of course people are going to confess to you.”
More and more people would; he hoped the answer would stay the same.
They both jumped when the bell went. “Oh!” Shouyou said.
Tobio raised an eyebrow. Where had his thoughts wound up now?
“I’ll see you after class! Wait for me, okay?”
I always wait for you, he was about to say, but Shouyou was already running. Tobio managed to walk back to class at a sedate pace, wondering what had made Shouyou hurry like that.
The wind had died down some by the time they left school, the world bathed in the heatless, low-angled light of late winter. Yesterday it had rained all day, but today the few clouds that there were were speared through with gold.
Shouyou was rooting around in his bag after asking Tobio to hold his bike.
“What are you looking for?” Tobio asked.
“This!” Shouyou said, holding up a piece of paper drawn on with colored pencils and folded into the shape of a box. “Ta-dah. Happy Valentine’s Day.”
“What?” Tobio took the thing, finding its weight uneven. Shouyou took the bike back.
“Kageyama-kun, I like you, please go out with me,” he said seriously—before laughing. Tobio snorted.
“What is this?” he asked, opening the top of the folded box. Inside were two energy bars, their packaging the worse for wear.
“These are the energy bars you keep in your schoolbag,” Tobio said. He knew because Shouyou always selectively ate other people’s food—usually his—rather than eating his own emergency supply.
“You don’t have to actually eat them,” Shouyou said. “I just wanted to give you something.”
Tobio took out the energy bars and examined the box—it had best setter award written on the side, along with drawings of tanukis and volleyballs. He found himself fighting a smile. “Thanks.”
“There they are!” someone ahead shouted, and Tobio looked up. The team was there, standing outside Ukai’s shop.
“I told you they wouldn’t be having a romantic candlelit dinner,” Nishinoya said to Asahi, who rubbed the back of his head. “It’s way too early in the day.”
“Why are you all here on Valentine’s Day?” Shouyou asked, his eyes bright. He ran forward to join the group, bike rattling.
“Good question,” Daichi said, earning a shove from Sugawara.
“We got chocolates!” Nishinoya and Tanaka said at the same time, then: “From Yacchan.”
Yachi held up her hands in front of her. “It was nothing!”
“Yeah, because the rest of the team got them too, and they were obligation chocolate,” Tsukishima said disparagingly.
“I couldn’t find you two during lunch,” Yachi explained, holding out two boxes. “Kiyoko-san helped make them.”
Tobio saw Nishinoya and Tanaka’s eyes close in bliss; so that was why they were so happy.
“They’re not from me,” Shimizu said sternly, her eyes on her two swains. It sounded like she’d chewed them out for something already.
“We were about to get meat buns,” Sugawara said to Shouyou and Tobio. “Oh! But don’t let us interrupt your date!”
He laughed when he saw their expressions.
“Just kidding,” he said.
“Meat buns, meat buns,” Shouyou started chanting, and Tobio stuffed the energy bars in his pocket before carefully unfolding the box they’d come in and putting it in his bag; he didn’t want it to get greasy.
Nishinoya and Tanaka joined in the meat bun chant, and Tobio couldn’t help wondering why they were so happy if all they got were obligation chocolates. He knew they’d been hoping for more, making bets on it, and it didn’t sound like they’d gotten chocolate from anyone else. Tanaka paused in his chant when he saw the way Tobio was looking at him.
“What?” Tanaka asked.
“Weren’t you hoping you’d get confessed to?” Tobio asked.
Tanaka laughed, smacking him on the back. “You’re getting better, Kageyama! Wow, I’m impressed!”
He blinked in confusion.
“It’s nice of you to worry, but there’s a silver lining here! Can you see it?”
Tobio thought of the kinds of things Sugawara would say. “The team’s all here together?” he guessed—but maybe Tanaka was more like Shouyou. “We’re getting meat buns?”
Tanaka grinned, holding up a finger. “Excellent guesses, but no. Where is Kiyoko-san?”
“Here,” Tobio said.
“And where is she not?”
“Everywhere else?”
“Exactly! If she’s here, she’s not out confessing to someone else!”
Sugawara drew Tobio away from Tanaka. “Don’t think about it too long, you’ll get depressed.”
“Hey, it’s a good thing!” Tanaka said staunchly.
“Keep telling yourself that,” Sugawara said, smiling pityingly. He drew Tobio out of earshot from the group. “I hear Hinata got confessed to,” he said quietly.
“Yeah,” Tobio said.
“And what did you think?”
“That it was to be expected?” he tried, wondering why all his senpai were suddenly expecting him to know the right answers to things.
“I mean, how did you like his answer? Did it satisfy you?”
Tobio didn’t say anything, because it’d probably just be wrong again.
“You’re always worried, aren’t you? That he’ll want someone else? Aren’t you a little happier now?”
It was unusual for Sugawara to be this pushy, so Tobio attempted an answer. “Maybe,” he said, seeing Shouyou bow to the girl in his mind’s eye, his posture stiff, not his usual self at all—even though he’d said on multiple occasions that he wanted to be confessed to. It was comforting, a bit, but not his sole point of comfort.
“I think—” he started, spurred on by Sugawara’s encouraging nods. He checked to make sure Shouyou was still out of earshot. “As long as we have volleyball, I won’t worry.”
“I see,” Sugawara said, though his smile was a little tempered. “Ah, well. Maybe one day it’ll be as long as we’re together, I won’t worry instead of as long as we have volleyball.”
Tobio wondered about that; functionally, weren’t they the same?
“Meat buns!” Shouyou shouted at that moment, jumping to grab one of the brown paper bags from Daichi. Tobio’s talk with Sugawara was over; everyone crowded in to grab a bun before Shouyou had a chance to eat them all; they stuffed their faces, talking about the day’s events between bites. None of them moved to go, and eventually Daichi sighed and said they could have another round of meat buns if they all promised to leave after. He was smiling, though.
It was nearly sunset by the time they all separated, and Shouyou insisted on walking Tobio home, though they didn’t speak. There was a light feeling in Tobio’s chest as he walked next to Shouyou, his hands in his pockets, clouds moving fast in the sky above him. Shouyou was smiling an unconscious smile, one Tobio wanted to kiss until it turned into laughter and what are you doing? He glanced around at the houses they were passing, wondering if it’d be okay to do it here.
“Did you hear about the first year girl who tried to give Tanaka-san chocolates?” Shouyou asked suddenly, looking up to meet Tobio’s gaze. The smile had widened.
“I heard.” There had been something about Tanaka staring so long the girl had apologized and left—but Tanaka’s continued hopelessness with girls was the furthest thing from Tobio’s mind right now. Shouyou looked even better like this, looking back at him, his cheeks flushed with the cold and his hair being ruffled by the wind. The setting sun was beginning to dye everything around them in orange hues—Shouyou’s color.
“What’s with you?” Shouyou asked, his eyebrows rising.
“Nothing.” Tobio ducked his head away, stuffed his hands further in his pockets. Maybe one day it’ll be as long as we’re together, I won’t worry, he heard Sugawara say in his mind. He wasn’t worried. He glanced at Shouyou again, feeling a jolt to find him still looking back, with questions in his eyes and a smile on his lips. “What?”
“You’re thinking weird stuff again, aren’t you?” Shouyou asked.
“Am not.”
“What did Suga-san say to you?”
Shouyou’s random bouts of insightfulness could really be a problem sometimes. “Not a lot. Just asked me how I was feeling after you got confessed to.”
“And? How are you feeling?”
Good. He was feeling good—and somehow he found himself saying, “As long as we’re together, I won’t worry.”
Shouyou’s eyebrows screwed together in confusion, and then he laughed. “Weirdo! That goes without saying, doesn’t it?”
And Tobio found himself smiling back—at a world dyed orange, at Shouyou with cheeks flushed pink with cold, at his own insecurities that ebbed and flowed only to be struck to pieces by a certain orange-haired boy, with the same force he’d use to spike a toss. That goes without saying.
“I guess it does,” he said, pushing back when Shouyou nudged him, then again when Shouyou tried to push him over in earnest, laughing and coming dangerously close to dropping his bike.
Tobio couldn’t help feeling he was exactly where he needed to be.