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“For the two of us, home isn't a place. It is a person. And we are finally home.”
― Stephanie Perkins, Anna and the French Kiss
It was only practical, and yet Kageyama still couldn’t bring himself to ask Hinata to live with him. Whenever he tries the words get tangled on his tongue, the way they always seem to when it comes to Hinata. The fact that they were dating at all only proved that there was luck in the world, and that when it came to Kageyama he had more than his fair share.
He might have been overthinking things though, because that summer as they ride the train into Tokyo to take a look at the team that they’re going to be joining, Hinata says, “And we should probably look at some apartments too, don’t you think?”
“What?” Kageyama asked, his head mostly full of white noise.
Hinata blushes a little. “I mean. If you want to? We can look at separate apartments too, if you want, I just thought that you-”
“No, no,” Kageyama shuts him up with more force than is probably necessary. “I do want to. I just wasn’t sure if you wanted to?” His own face starts heating up as well and he starts fiddling with the zipper of his jacket instead of looking at Hinata.
“I want to,” Hinata says, and that’s that.
They had attempted to at least pretend that there was a reason for there to be two beds in their tiny apartment, but after many all night sex sessions (because they could) and studying in the same bed (again, because they could) they decided that there was no more use in pretending and Hinata’s bed became a cold and abandoned thing, full of clean laundry and text books.
Hinata, though, is absolutely horrible to share a bed with. Kageyama had seen proof of that before on overnight volleyball trips, but he hadn’t thought about that in terms of sharing his bed.
Hinata likes to sprawl out and he kicks and moves in his sleep, waking Kageyama up every time. He’d much rather have a boyfriend that sang in their sleep or something--at least there were earplugs for that. What Hinata did though, couldn’t be ignored.
That night Kageyama has been hit in the face by flailing limbs more than twice, and he’s ready to rip Hinata’s hair out. After the third night of no sleep, and snapping at everyone that so much as looked in his direction, Kageyama pushes him off until he lands on the floor with a thud.
“What the hell was that for?” Hinata asks from the floor, a fight in his voice. At two in the morning, Kageyama is ready to give him one.
“You are the worst,” Kageyama tells him. “Can you just stop kicking?”
“I kick?” Hinata asks, which answers the question right there.
“Come here,” Kageyama tells him, annoyed but already feeling slightly guilty for pushing Hinata to the floor. He wraps his arms around Hinata. “Stay put,” he commands him, before falling back to sleep.
In the morning Kageyama literally has to untangle himself from Hinata--who managed to have drooled on his pajamas as he wrapped around Kageyama like a heliotrope vine--but he’s really got no complaints.
Kageyama cooks for them. His mother taught him, giving him small things to chop when he was small and eventually having him work up to making full meals. He can make a traditional Japanese breakfast with his eyes closed, and even his Western food is good when he follows the recipe exactly.
Hinata had offered to help at first, but they soon learned that Hinata in the kitchen only led to disaster (and one particularly alarming pan fire than had left a scorch mark on the ceiling). He sits out and sets the table instead, keeping Kageyama company.
Cooking their own food means going grocery shopping, and Hinata is always down for that. He always manages to sneak in impulse buys that aren’t necessary, and Kageyama always manages to put them back before he notices. It’s a vicious cycle, but it’s also a constant one.
One day Kageyama catches him and Hinata pauses, a stricken expression on his face. “What. Do you think. You’re doing?” Kageyama asks, making his voice as threatening as possible.
Hinata gulps, but he looks more guilty than scared. Not even Kageyama’s scariest voices really work on him anymore, even though Kageyama knows for a fact that they still work because he made a freshman cry his third year of high school. “It’s just lychee candy,” Hinata says.
“We don’t need it. Put it back.”
“Come on, it’s just candy!”
“We need to stay strict with our diets. We’re on a different level now--we can’t mess around with crap like this.”
“I know, that’s why I eat all of the leafy greens and meat and whatever else you make without complaint, but it’s just candy, not the gateway drug to obesity. And it’s only twenty calories a piece!”
Kageyama just stares at him, and Hinata stares back. It’s not a big deal! Hinata tells him with only his eyes, and Kageyama argues back. Sugar intake needs to be limited. That’s the whole point of a proper nutritional training regimen!
Eventually something’s gotta give, and it does with a sigh. “Fine,” Kageyama says. “It’s okay, I guess. Just this once”
Hinata looks around, making sure that no one’s in the aisle with them, before jumping up and kissing Kageyama’s cheek. “You’re the best,” he says, slipping the candy in the basket.
The winter of their second year of college is the coldest that Tokyo has seen in thirty years. There’s ice on the roads and they have to bundle up before walking to university each day. Hinata steals his gloves, because he forgets where he puts his own, and then says that he hasn’t seen them. In retaliation Kageyama steals the woolen hats that Hinata’s mother knits for him, and hopes that Hinata’s ears freeze. Things work out like that.
One night their entire building’s heat stops working. The landlord says that it will take three days for it to work again, and that there’s nothing that they can do but wait it out.
Things are fine at first, even though they’re not necessarily warm. But eventually the cold starts leaking through the cracks and it’s just cold.
“I can’t believe this,” Hinata grumbles, his nose red. “I really can’t believe this,” he says again, louder this time, as if their landlord can hear him, or would care.
“Stop complaining and bring the blankets over to the couch,” Kageyama says. Hinata does, wrapping the blankets around both of them.
Kageyama presses play as Hinata scoots closer to him, wrapping their fingers together. As soon as the music starts playing Hinata groans. “Not one of these he says. Why do you even like Western films? You almost failed English twice in high school! And these don’t even have color!”
“Shut up,” Kageyama tells him. “They’re not that bad.”
“They’re boring.”
“Of course you’d think so.”
Hinata keeps up a steady stream of complaints as the movie goes on, but since there are subtitles Kageyama can ignore him. Besides, he’s perfectly warm, the blankets and Hinata keeping him that way despite the way the wind blows outside.
Eventually Hinata’s complaints fade out, and he falls asleep, his head rolling onto Kageyama’s chest, snoring lightly.
“Dumbass,” Kageyama says fondly, kissing Hinata on the temple.
The next morning they both wake up cramped on the couch, the blanket wrapped around both of them. Kageyama is sure that he’s never been warmer.
Hinata’s grandmother dies in the middle of their second year of college. He has to go back home for a week to help his mom with the funeral and the legal paperwork, as well as to help his whole family say good-bye.
He doesn’t seem that upset about it all things considered, and Kageyama asks him about that when they’re both packing.
“She’s been sick for a long time,” is Hinata’s explanation. “We all knew it was going to happen. It was just a matter of when, you know?” His face is too blank as he says it, so that night in bed Kageyama puts his arms around him and hopes it helps.
He drops Hinata off at the train station and goes to class. He eats lunch alone, even though it’s a Monday and Mondays are the days that he and Hinata can both meet up for lunch at the same time. He goes to volleyball practice and sets to people that aren’t Hinata. After practice he walks home alone--slower than usual because he has no one to race against. The apartment is quiet, and he eats another meal alone. He then goes to bed and sleeps. Alone.
The next day Kageyama is fine. He is--he’s totally and completely fine. He can handle being alone--he was an only child, after all. Just because their apartment suddenly seems to echo and he keeps turning around, expecting Hinata to be behind him instead of beside him, doesn’t mean that he’s feeling lonely. But It’s only been a day. He can get through this.
The second and third days are fine too, even though he keeps cooking too much food, as if he’s expecting someone else to eat with him too. Instead he eats alone in front of the TV, watching all of his subtitled English movies that Hinata would gripe about having to watch. Somehow, they’re less entertaining without Hinata’s complaints in his ears.
On the third day Hinata calls and talks about how all of the preparations are going and asks about volleyball practice. Kageyama manages to sound normal as he answers, even though he feels strange listening to the background noise and not knowing what’s going on. He’s usually Hinata’s background noise.
“I’ve got to go!” Hinata says eventually. “I miss you, bye!” He hangs up before Kageyama can even respond, or say that he misses him too. His fingers complain when he lets go of the phone, not realizing that he’d been gripping it that hard. Kageyama spends the rest of the night hoping that Hinata will call again, but he doesn’t.
The next day Kageyama practices hard, to the point of exhaustion. He doesn’t feel Hinata’s absence so much then, can’t feel that something’s missing when your muscles are burning and your heart’s pounding.
He doesn’t even bother turning on the lights when he gets home, or starting dinner like he would on a normal day. Instead he takes a shower and then crawls to the (empty) bed to take a nap.
He wakes up to tapping on the door and finds Yachi standing there, bag in her hand. He just looks at her until she starts to explain, gushing words at his raised eyebrow. “Just seeing how you were doing. Hinata said that you sounded weird on the phone? And that he was worried? So I came. Looks like he was right.”
“He doesn’t need to be worried, I’m fine. You can tell him that yourself.”
Yachi throws a pointed look to the apartment behind him. “I’d buy that, if it wasn’t obvious that you were wallowing in the darkness before I came in.”
“I wasn’t wallowing. I was napping. And besides-” his words fall short, because he really doesn’t know what to say after that.
Her face softens. “Come on. Put on a decent shirt and I’ll take you out for ramen. My treat.”
They go to Hinata’s favorite ramen restaurant, which only serves to make Kageyama miss him more. The conversation lags between the two of them, like it always does when Hinata isn’t around to keep things going. He likes Yachi, and she likes him, but their connection was always through school and Hinata. Now that she doesn’t have to tutor him anymore, since the university does that now, he can’t find anything to say. Hinata would know what to say, of course, and he’d probably have Yachi laughing by now. Instead it’s a very quiet dinner.
“Wow, you’ve got it bad, huh?” she says as she drops him back off at the apartment. Kageyama just looks at her, feeling confused, and she smiles. “I’m sure he’s missing you just as much, even if he’s a little more functional about it.”
Kageyama watches her go down the hallway before shutting the door and heading back to his empty home.
The next two days Kageyama doesn’t even pretend. He practices until he wants to die, and then runs two laps after that, just to keep his mind off of missing Hinata.
Even that doesn’t totally work, practice reminding him that he hasn’t set to Hinata in days, but it’s better than nothing.
He buys convenience store bentos and eats them for dinner, watching reruns of that drama that Hinata likes so much, even if he has never found it that funny.
He feels pathetic, but he can’t help it. He misses Hinata too much, and feels his absence everywhere. He hadn’t realized what a big part of his life Hinata occupies until now, and now that he knows he’s not sure what to do about it except sit here and let it happen.
On the day before Hinata comes back Kageyama can’t sleep. His mother used to tell him that sleep would make the time go by faster, and maybe it does, but he’s too restless for that to work. He ends up getting up hours before the train will get to the station and heads there anyway.
He buys steamed buns and sits on the bench and waits, his leg jiggling. Now that Hinata’s coming he finds that he can’t stay still, and not even eating a bun can relax him. He’s started pacing by the time that Hinata’s train comes, and he’s the first one to the pick up area.
Kageyama sees Hinata before Hinata sees him, his hair bright in a sea of darkness. He’s hesitating, trying to decide what’s the best way to get his attention when Hinata turns and finally sees him. He smiles at Kageyama and all of the pressure on his chest goes away with that one expression.
Finally, he thinks, and hugs Hinata without thinking.
“Oof!” Hinata says, the breath knocked out of him, before he hugs Kageyama back.
“Welcome home,” Kageyama tells him, voice muffled in his hair before he finally pulls away. He wishes that he could hold Hinata’s hand on the way back to their apartment, but the looks that they’re getting now would be nothing compared to the looks that they’d get if they did that.
“Good to be back,” Hinata says, throwing his bag over his shoulder. “Let’s go home,” he says, walking in the direction of their apartment. Kageyama follows him home.