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When Tobio was six he fell into a lake.
It was frigid, it was frightening, it was him fighting to stay afloat when he had not yet learned to swim.
He remembers small bits of it—increments of a memory he never wanted to keep.
He remembers the sounds. The cicadas singing one moment but not the next. The joy of his sister quickly turning disjointed. The breaths that he tried and failed to take as the water rushed in and claimed them.
He remembers panic, too.
His own when his chest started to burn. His grandfather’s when he jumped in after him, when he carried him out of the water and looked more crazed than Tobio had ever seen him before. His sister’s when the two of them made it back to the shore.
He remembers how he shivered and coughed and finally, finally, tasted air on his tongue. How he gulped it down greedily, how that nearly made him choke again.
He remembers how soft the grass was against his wet skin after, how warm the sun.
He remembers how, eventually, the panic ebbed away. How a sense of safety wrapped around him like a blanket—like his grandfather’s arms on a soft summer day.
He remembers how it was just that. A soft summer day that somehow took a turn for the worse. A soft summer day that made him decide he liked land much better than water. That made him wary of seeking it out again. Both that summer and the next.
But this summer is not the next. It is far ahead in a line of them, a treasure trove of memories, with space for him to grow.
And Tobio has grown. Because he is seventeen now, and he no longer falls into lakes. He knows how to swim, has been taught to stay afloat, but he does not try and tempt fate, not if he can help it.
The thing is though, he can’t help it. Not when Hinata Shouyou is involved.
Not when he dares him, with the fire in his hair transcending to his eyes, to race him. Not when he speeds into the water and turns around to grin. When the sun in his smile is brighter than the one beating harshly against Tobio’s back.
When Tobio has been thinking things like that since the days turned longer and the nights turned warmer.
And he supposes that it isn’t recent, and he supposes that it can’t be helped. Not when Hinata Shouyou looks the way he does — like childhood memories wrapped in gold and a future’s dream poured into bronze.
When he feels, for lack of a better term, like home.
And Tobio isn’t really familiar with the word, deems it an old acquaintance he’d thought to be dead, but oh how he’d like to get to know it. How he longs to change it, his perspective on homes, and make it entirely his own—their own.
Though perhaps that is just summer talking.
Or perhaps it’s that he wants, has wanted, something that he isn’t sure he can have. Something he’d hold gently in his hands, until his fingers turned to dust, and would find a way to keep holding onto afterwards anyways.
Something like promises made and promises kept, like invincibility, like loving and being loved in return, like the past and the present and the future and all the moments in between.
Like Hinata Shouyou and himself growing old together not because they were destined to but because they chose to—because it felt right.
But those are troubles for later, and much too complicated for Tobio to wrap his head around now. And so instead he watches Hinata Shouyou dive into the water, reemerging dripping wet, and feels as breathless as he did all those years ago.
He blinks dumbly, trying to clear thoughts that were never clear in the first place, and thinks he may be on the verge of a realization.
That maybe Hinata isn’t just a home, and maybe Tobio’s thoughts about him aren’t all horrendously profound.
Maybe they’re both deep and shallow, comforting like the breeze and hot like the sun. Maybe they’re as multifaceted as Hinata himself: both horrifically adorable, with the freckles on his sun-kissed skin, and infuriatingly sexy, with the little bits of it that haven’t been touched by summer yet.
Huh.
Tobio can see it now, harsh against his tan. Lines that tell a story: about Hinata cycling to town in those sinfully cut tank tops and the shorts he bought three years ago—the ones that barely fit over his bulging thighs anymore.
Tobio can see those now too, pure, unrestrained muscle made all the more delectable by the water gliding over the skin, the slick shorts that cling to it. And fuck, did it just get hotter?
“Come on slowpoke-yama,” a no longer shrill voice shrieks. “I can feel myself shriveling up from your… your slowness!”
He decides that it did not. Because Hinata Shouyou is still Hinata Shouyou, and Tobio may be realizing things about himself but even he can’t deny that the boy is a moron.
He feels his face twist into a frown, a little offended and a little disgusted, but the warmth in his chest only radiates further and he knows that he is fucked. Though perhaps it’s just the heat getting to him, and he really should go for a swim.
“You’re a dumbass!” he yells back quickly, and steels himself.
“Well you’re slow!”
He’s at the edge now, a hair's breadth away from the pond. He’s prickly from it, even more so than usual.
“Give me a minute!”
“I’ve given you at least two!”
“Hinata!”
“Kageyama!”
“Fine! I’m coming!”
It’s mind blowing, truly, how Hinata Shouyou can make him forget about his troubles just by getting under his skin.
He wades into the mountain’s hidden pond without a second thought, barely even freezes when the water rushes up to greet him, so cool against his skin that it pebbles upon impact.
Before he knows it, he’s face-to-face with a brightly grinning Hinata—close enough to count the freckles on his nose. He finds his footing, but the breath is punched from his lungs anyway.
He blames it on the walk over.
Though he’s staring and he knows it. The sun is low in the sky and Tobio is staring because Hinata is golden. His grin turns softer, smaller, private like it’s just for the two of them to see. Like Hinata knows all the thoughts running through Tobio’s head. Like he wants to turn them into memories.
“You’re cold?” he asks him, and touches the goosebumps on his chest.
His fingers are calloused and familiar, yet foreign all at once, and Tobio feels heat bloom across his cheeks. Hinata huffs a laugh, eyes sparkling with smug amusement when he sets them back on Tobio’s.
“Or not.”
“Shut up.”
Hinata comes closer, touches his fingers to the heat in Tobio’s face now—to feel the difference, perhaps. Or maybe because the summer is getting to him too, or because they’re teetering on the edge of adulthood, the edge of something, or because, because—
Because he wants this too.
Because Tobio is not alone in his desire, in his need to discover, in his need to know, dammit, if this can lead to something more. And Tobio values their friendship, maybe more than he values anything else, but he wants—
“Tobio?”
He wants to hear Hinata say his name again, just like that. He wants to hear it whispered in his ear, against his skin, across his lips. He doesn’t want anyone else to speak it, if it does not sound like this.
The hand on his cheek turns to a palm, fingertips curling against the nape of his neck, and Tobio swallows thickly. He’s wordless. He’s breathless. He’s clueless, without Hinata’s guidance.
“I don’t…” he tries, but the words stick to his tongue.
“It’s okay,” Hinata whispers, still terrifyingly close. “We don’t have to.”
“But I want…”
“Anything,” Hinata assures him when he doesn’t finish his sentence. “Everything. Whatever you want, you can have it.” He smiles, and Tobio feels it in his chest. Then he whispers, soft and wise: “But you don’t have to take it.”
He smiles, even more soft, even more precious, and Tobio feels his breath return to him all at once. There is water lapping at his chest and a beast trying to claw its way out of the cavity there. And it’s a lot, it’s too much—
He only knows his eyes are closed because he can no longer see Hinata’s face, though he doesn’t need to see it to know what it must look like. And it’s a tragedy, truly, that Tobio has made it so. But maybe it tells him all he needs to know. Maybe it tells him that they need to—
“Hey,” Hinata says, and it’s as warm and kind and soft as the fingers curling around his wrist, tugging but not pulling. “Let’s go back.”
To the shore. To somewhere, anywhere, where Tobio will not lose his footing. Where he will not drown when his feelings overwhelm him. Not metaphorically. Not physically.
“Yeah,” he says, and it sounds like a whisper. “Yeah.”
And he was wrong before, about that look on Hinata’s face. Because it is not dreadful, it is not pained. It is rather gorgeous, actually, and maybe Tobio should keep his eyes open, from now on.
He vows that he will.
〰️
“You don’t like water?” Hinata asks him once they’re back on the shore.
“I don’t… love it,” Tobio acquiesces, because it feels like a challenge and he doesn’t like to lose. But Hinata quirks a brow at him, knows him better than he maybe knows himself, and Tobio has to concede. “I don’t particularly like it, either.”
And he expects there to be more, maybe a laugh or a grin that spells trouble, a question at the very least. But Hinata just hums, apparently satisfied, and leaves it as is.
The thing is, though, that Tobio does not know Hinata to ever be satisfied. He is greedy, almost overbearingly so—Tobio feels it with every toss he sends his way. He is selfish, he’s… he’s hungry. He’s an overzealous dumbass who bites off more than he can chew.
He is not satisfied.
Except when Tobio sneaks a glance at him, his eyes are closed and his lips are curled up in a content little smile, and he looks… relaxed, almost. Which is entirely unfair, because Tobio feels like he’s about to blow a fuse. So how dare he lay there, all glistening and glowing, and leave him in such a state?
And so Tobio, rather stupidly, announces again: “I don’t like water.”
“Hm,” Hinata hums once more, and Tobio is really starting to get fed up with him now.
“Why would you—” he huffs, frustrated, then tries to glare at the unassuming mass lying perfectly content in the grass. “Don’t ask questions if you’re not going to do anything with the answer, dumbass!”
Hinata blinks open an eye, but only one. The smile stays on his face. “I hummed though.”
“A hum is not a response!”
“Did you want me to respond, then?”
Tobio thinks about it for a second, which is foolish because he already knows the answer is no, and feels himself pout.
“Right,” Hinata says, and it sounds inexplicably gentle, like he wants Tobio to understand that he didn’t mess anything up. “We don’t need to talk about things if you don’t want to, Kageyama. We don’t need to do anything at all.”
Except Tobio wants to.
He wants to share everything with Hinata, now that he still has the chance. He wants to make the most of these precious few months they have left together before their worlds turn on their axes.
He wants to tread the water. He will just have to be careful not to drown.
“I don’t…” he starts, and steels himself. “I don’t mind talking about it.”
That gets Hinata’s attention. Hinata’s attention burns.
Okay, so maybe it’s more of a mellow, comfortable warmth than a burn, exactly. But it makes Tobio burn, and that is bad enough.
Hinata, though, stays silent. Quietly wills Tobio to keep going, solemnly swears that he’ll listen without uttering a word, and how could Tobio refuse?
So he tells him. About a soft summer day that turned him hard. About drowning and staying afloat. About feeling cold and alone and then finding the sun.
It sounds oddly like a metaphor.
Hinata doesn’t seem to think so though. He’s peeled his hand off his chest, laid it on the grass, inching closer to Tobio’s fingers while he listens. And Tobio wants, so badly, for them to touch, but Tobio wants a great many things, so perhaps that’s summer talking again.
He knows it may not be when Hinata’s fingers finally curl over his—protective, almost—and his breath hitches in his throat.
“You’re touching me again.”
Hinata hums a third time, a hint of mischief on his lips. “I am.”
“Why?”
He shrugs, like he was pushed off the cliff a long time ago, and it sounds like daybreak when he confesses, softly: “I like touching you.”
Tobio doesn’t even mean to when his head jerks to the side, when it thunks against the grass just so he can look at Hinata head-on. He doesn’t even mind when what he sees is this, when it is Hinata Shouyou illuminated by the sunlight he was named after.
Hinata smiles, incredibly soft, and Tobio feels it like a punch to the gut. And it’s not summer talking now. It is him.
“I don’t like the water,” he repeats, because he can’t find any other words to say.
“But you followed me in.”
He can’t deny it. He nods, flexes his fingers just to feel the warmth of Hinata’s skin, and whispers, soft like a prayer. “But I followed you in.”
“Why?” Hinata inquires, an echo of himself, something hopeful in the sound. Like he’s still at that cliffside waiting for Tobio to join him. Like he wants them to fly but wants them to do so together.
And so Tobio isn’t afraid when he smiles. When he swallows. When he answers. “I would follow you anywhere,” and he means it.
He isn’t afraid when Hinata leans in, not like in the pond. Not when Hinata’s eyes dart to his lips. When they come back up to rest like fire to the sky. When they burn. When they hunger.
When he answers, eventually. “Even here?” and comes closer still.
And there’s just a molecule between them, just a lifetime wrapped inside it. And who is Tobio to deny it?
“Even here,” he says, and meets him in the middle.
And maybe it’s the summer talking and maybe it is Tobio, but the words he hears are no words at all. They’re the squeak of shoes against a hardwood floor. They’re a whisper of a promise tucked up into the air. They’re the crunch of concrete. They’re the rustle of something sprouting from the cracks. They’re fireworks,
and Hinata’s the fuse.
It feels like ages before they part, all toffee-slow and caramel-soft, and Tobio hears something else. Something wet. Something he assumes are his own lips parting, or maybe Hinata’s.
He flushes.
It feels like no time at all before Hinata is back on him. Careful, but not soft. Not satisfied. It’s hunger, real and pure, and Tobio feels it set his very soul alight.
“God, that took you long enough.”
And he knew he was attracted to Hinata Shouyou—he’s not blind. But never did he imagine it to feel like this: like the earth will crumble if he pulls away, like his hands will burn if he lets go, like something inside him will explode if Hinata keeps talking in that gravelly voice, sounding utterly wrecked already.
He sighs when Hinata moves to deepen the kiss, when his hands come up to protect Tobio’s head from the hard, unforgiving ground he lies on. He does something else when Hinata uses the opportunity to slip him his tongue, when he feels it dance across his own. But Tobio is no wordsmith, and he cannot explain the sounds he makes.
He just lies there, on this soft summer day, and lets Hinata Shouyou take what he wants. Takes something back when that leads to him fitting against him like a puzzle piece, hands snug on his hips, and lips gliding over skin.
It’s not until Hinata nibbles at his throat that Tobio tries to speak.
Flounders. Fails.
Because all that he gets out is one little garble of a groan, and he feels Hinata grin against his neck, feels him push his hips impossibly closer to Tobio’s.
And oh. Oh, Tobio is hard. And oh, Hinata is moving against him now. And oh.
Oh,
that feels good.
He’s not sure if he should be relieved or devastated when the pressure retreats, good yet new as it feels. But then Hinata sits up against his thighs, and smiles down at him all wonderfully, and Tobio decides that he doesn’t really care.
Not when Hinata looks like his wildest dreams come true.
He doesn’t notice how his arms strain and his neck cranes until Hinata huffs a laugh and helps him reach. When he holds him tightly and kisses him softly. When he pulls apart but not away. When he touches their foreheads together, even more content than before, and sighs.
“You’d follow me anywhere?”
Tobio doesn’t trust his own voice enough to speak, feels unsteady like the waves still lapping at the shore. But he doesn’t feel unsure. He nods, breathlessly, and traces his fingers across Hinata’s cheek.
“Everywhere,” he manages eventually.
“Even…” Hinata’s hips finish his sentence for him, slotting over Tobio’s carefully, like he’s afraid that he’ll stop him if he goes any faster.
He won’t though.
“Yes,” he breathes out, and pushes back. Hinata smiles and it’s like the heavens breaking open.
Tobio smiles back, foreign but not strange, as if the universe is telling him that it’s okay, that he’s found him, that he can show him how he cares.
And it’s easy after that.
Easy to dip into waistbands and heat up water-cooled skin. Easy to map out bodies with wandering hands. Easy to draw out sounds with unsure fingers, growing more clever by the minute. Easy to find mouths and unblemished patches of skin. Easy to blemish them. Easy to draw each other to the brink, dare each other to go over, jumping after immediately because neither of them could ever be so far ahead. Not anymore.
It’s easy to fall into a rhythm. It’s easy because it’s them.
Because they don’t have to, but they choose to anyway. Because they know each other inside and out. Because they ache to discover even more. Because they have all summer to learn, and all their lives to reflect.
It’s easy to lie there afterwards, the sun on their skin and their hands on each other, just a little, and laugh at the inevitability of it all.
It’s easy, when Kageyama Tobio no longer falls into lakes. When he’s graduated to falling in love instead.
He looks to his right, at the easy smile on Hinata’s face as he talks about the future, and squeezes the fingers in his palm.
He thinks he’ll be a pro in no time.