Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

It took a long time for anyone to notice Shouyou’s tics. His father had left when Shouyou was seven, and his mother was busy trying to provide for two kids all on her own. There was no one at home watching Shouyou closely.

School wasn’t much different. His teachers were overloaded with thirty kids in each class to lecture and watch over. Asking anyone to identify the abnormal fidgeting of one student compared to three-dozen other energetic elementary school kids would be too much.

Even Shouyou didn’t notice the change at first. He was aware of the itch he’d feel before he shook his head or scrunched his nose. He recognized the impulse to move, but he didn’t realize how compulsive the behaviors had become. He had to shake his head. He had to scrunch his nose. He had to shrug his shoulders over, and over, and over.

It wasn’t until he was nine-years-old that Shouyou realized he couldn’t control his movements like other kids could.

“Hinata-kun, please stay still. There are quizzes out,” his teacher said from the front of the room. Shouyou nodded his head quickly before jerking it to the side a few times.

As soon as he felt like he had shook his head enough, Shouyou stared down at his test. He crinkled his nose a few times. Exams always gave Shouyou anxiety. It was hard for him to pay attention in class, and he had difficulty reading and writing because of it. Half of the time Shouyou was in a desk, it was all he could do to stay still, let alone listen to what the teacher was saying. Taking quizzes like this only proved what a terrible student he was.

Despite being only nine-years-old, Shouyou felt a lot of pressure to perform. He wanted to be smart, and he wanted his mother to be proud. Shouyou could feel sweat starting to bead at the nape of his neck as he looked over his exam. He could hardly read the questions.

The more nervous Shouyou felt, the stronger his urges to shake his head and crinkle his nose grew. He jerked his head to the side a couple times.

“Eyes on your own paper,” his teacher announced pointedly.

Shouyou bit his lip and tried to keep his head still. He stopped thinking, stopped breathing, focusing on nothing but looking straight down at his paper. Tears welled up in his eyes. He wanted to shake his head so badly; it was hurting him not to move it. There was no reason for Shouyou to desperately want to move his head around like this, but he couldn’t suppress the urge at all.

I’ll do it just once, Shouyou thought. His eyes flickered up to look at his teacher. The second she was looking the other way, Shouyou whipped his head to the side so fast he thought the tendons in his neck might break.

“Ah!” Shouyou squeaked. It had startled him; the action had been so violent.

His teacher turned back around at the noise and frowned when she saw Shouyou looking up from his exam. “Hinata-kun, you know full well that you’re supposed to be quiet and look at your own paper when tests are out,” she said, patience gone.

Shouyou’s eyes widened as she walked towards his desk. He couldn’t make eye contact with his teacher, he was too busy shaking his head, but he could tell that she was glaring. Shouyou felt his stomach drop when she grabbed his paper and ripped it in half.

“What? No!” Shouyou yelped, terrified to see his exam torn into pieces.

“Cheating won’t be tolerated in this classroom. You can talk to me about extra credit to make up for this exam later, but next time, don’t look at your classmate’s papers.”

“But I wasn’t!” Shouyou exclaimed, his head finally stilling. His heart was beating furiously in his chest, he was so anxious. He couldn’t remember ever feeling this nervous before, this jittery. He was two seconds away from crying, and all he wanted to do was… was… was scrunch his nose again.

“Don’t make faces at me, or you won’t be getting any extra credit points at all,” his teacher said.

She wasn’t being particularly mean, but she didn’t understand. Shouyou didn’t understand either. He hadn’t realized he’d been making a face. Tears welled up in his eyes. Shouyou crinkled and uncrinkled his nose over and over as he started to cry. “Sorry, sorry,” he apologized. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m sorry.”

His teacher arched an eyebrow at him, surprised by how emotional he had become. Her face softened when she realized how distressed he was. “Why don’t you take a walk,” she offered kindly. “Take a break and come back when you’re ready to learn.”

Shouyou nodded and stood up on shaky legs. He left the room biting back sobs and jerking his head to the side, unable to help himself.

The older Shouyou gets, the more body parts start moving without his permission. By the time he was twelve, his tics consisted of head jerking, nose twitching, hair twirling, jumping, hopping, flapping his arms, and humming.

It had become exceptionally difficult to sit in his desk at school. He jumped in his seat every now and then, and his teachers scolded him for being so wound up. He flapped his arms near constantly. The bullies in his class called him “Dodo” because all the flapping made him look like a bird that couldn’t fly.

The worst was the hair twirling. Shouyou’s mother always got worked up over his messy hair. She would take out the knots with a comb as gently as she could every night and every morning, but Shouyou still had bedhead.

“Mom, careful!” Shouyou squeaked as his mother tried to brush out his bangs.

“Well, I’m trying to- Geez, Shou-chan, this would be a lot easier if you would just sit still,” she complained as Shouyou’s head whipped to the side twice. He hopped in his seat. “I swear, you’re the most fidgety kid I know.”

“Mmhmm,” he hummed, tears collecting in his eyes when his mom set to work on a particularly big knot. Without thinking, his hand went up to twirl the hair at the nape of his neck. His mother smacked his hand.

“You’ve got to stop doing that, Shouyou.” She sounded exasperated.

Shouyou crinkled his nose a few times. “I don’t think I can,” he replied uncertainly. It had been three years since the day he couldn’t keep his eyes on his own paper in class, but things were only getting worse. Everyone was always telling him to stop moving, but only recently had Shouyou realized it wasn’t a choice for him. If he didn’t move, the tension in his throat and chest would grow so great that it hurt to breathe. He was pretty sure that wasn’t normal.

“Habits are hard to break, but anything’s possible with some willpower.”

“No, mom, you don’t-“ Shouyou cut himself off with a long hum. “Mmmmmm-get it. I can’t –mmmmmmm- sit still, I can’t.”

“You’re just energetic,” his mom assured him. “We have to find some way to get you to relax. You should join a club that will wear you out, something where you get to jump as much you like to. I feel like you’re constantly bouncing around.”

Shouyou’s mind leapt back to the volleyball tournament he had seen on TV the other day. He could still picture that tiny little player, jersey number 10 on the Karasuno team, jumping higher than the net, higher than the tallest spiker. Shouyou could jump like that. His mom was right; he was constantly hopping in place. Jumping to Shouyou was the same as scrunching his nose or flapping his arms.

“I was thinking I might try volleyball,” he admitted, wincing when his head jerked to the left and the comb got stuck in his hair.

His mom huffed out a sigh. “The sooner the better, huh?” she laughed lightly.

Shouyou nodded pitifully. He yanked out the comb and passed it back to his mother, a giant frown on his face. He hated getting his hair pulled out.

Starting volleyball doesn’t help Shouyou at all. In fact, it only makes things worse.

The tics don’t die down. If anything, they grow more frequent. Plus, every now and again, Shouyou felt compelled to suddenly scream whatever he was trying to say, and no one appreciated his random increases in volume or the outbursts he would have in class.

Now on top of getting bullied for his flapping arms and various other tics, people made fun of him for playing volleyball alone. Shouyou had never felt like more of an outcast. Sure, he had a few good friends who tossed to him when he asked and didn't laugh at him too much, but Shouyou wanted a team, and he wanted his body to stop moving without his permission.

Distracted by his thoughts of volleyball and the stupid bullies he had to deal with, Shouyou accidentally passed a ball out into the sidewalk. It rolled in front of one of his classmate’s feet.

“Here you go, Dodo,” the boy said, throwing the ball as hard as he could at Shouyou’s twitching nose. It hit him square in the face.

Shouyou fell backwards while the other boy ran away laughing. He groaned as he picked himself up off the pavement. Shouyou stood up on shaky legs, face aching, but determination in his eyes. “One more time,” he yelped, unable to help himself. He practiced receives until his mom called him in for dinner.

“Shouyou, stop moving around so much, you’re embarrassing me,” Kouji complained. He looked disturbed as Shouyou jumped up and down at his side. Waiting at the train station was hard, especially when your body wanted to move around so much.

Shouyou’s face crinkled up; although, he wasn’t sure if he was upset or if his nose scrunched up on it’s own. “Yeah, well, your dumb haircut is embarrassing me,” he complained, sticking his tongue out in Kouji’s direction.

Izumi hid a laugh behind his hand.

“Hey, it’s not funny,” Kouji complained, self-consciously pulling his hoodie up over his head. “My hair is fine.”

“Yes, it is, and so is Shou-chan’s jumping,” Izumi replied. He was always a great referee when it came to Shouyou and Kouji’s arguments. He never got on Shouyou’s case for his perpetual state of motion, and he always reassured Kouji when he needed it.

Kouji frowned but he perked up when he remembered where they were going. “Hey, Izumi, you said your mom got us kiwi popsicles, right?”

“No, just peach.”

“Oh, I like peach!” Shouyou exclaimed, his body stilling as he started talking. “I also like grapefruit. But have you had the Neapolitan spaghetti flavor one? Because that one is so gross, I can’t even believe that they made it a flavor. Every time I eat it, I feel like gagging, but I keep getting it anyway just to see if I can figure out why they made it, like maybe I just keep getting bad ones, but if that’s true then I’ve had an awful lot of bad ones, and maybe I should just stick to peach, and grapefruit, and soda, and-“ Shouyou cut himself off when he realized his friends were laughing at him. “Hey, what’s so funny?”

“Nothing, nothing,” Kouji promised, snickering behind his hand.

“Wha~at?”

Izumi flushed. “It’s just funny how you can be so hyper all of the time, and then the second you start talking, the only thing that stays excited is your face, and the rest of your body is still.”

Shouyou frowned at that, not sure what Izumi meant when he said he had an excited face. The train pulled up to the platform and all three boys stepped on. “I guess that’s true,” he agreed taking a seat and immediately fidgeting. Maybe if he was still when he was talking, he should try doing it more often.

Shouyou knew practice exams were going to be hard going in. However, he never could have predicted the sheer physical and mental strain they would be. Having to sit perfectly still and somehow focus enough to not bomb every question on the test was impossible. The only way for Shouyou to not move was to think really, really hard about not moving. Being still was something Shouyou did at the exclusion of everything else.

His tiny hands clenched into fists as he stared blankly down at his paper. He wasn’t reading, he wasn’t seeing. His skull felt like it was inflating like a balloon, and the pressure of it was immense. Shouyou squeezed his eyes shut as his headache grew more and more painful and his mind screamed at him to move, move, move!

The tiny part of his brain that wasn’t focused on keeping still remembered that time when he was nine, when his teacher accused him for cheating because he couldn’t keep still. That was just a regular test. This was a practice exam for high school. It was supposed to be taken seriously, and Shouyou didn’t want to get in trouble for moving.

He was so sick of getting in trouble for moving.

But just because Shouyou was determined, that didn’t mean this wasn’t painful. The longer he went without twitching, the more body parts were affected. His face felt itchy, his shoulders were tense in an effort not to shake his head. His arms burned as he tried to keep them still. His legs cramped in an effort to keep from hopping in his seat. Even his throat felt scratchy as he tried to keep from shouting.

Shouyou whimpered.

He felt a few eyes flicker over at him, but he ignored his classmates. If he lost his concentration, he knew he’d lose control. Every time Shouyou tried to stop his tics, he ended up twitching three times harder than before.

The exam instructor looked towards him curiously. “Hinata-kun, are you okay-“

“Ah!” Shouyou shouted, hardly letting his teacher finish. He wasn’t even sure if he was shouting to answer the professor’s question, or if it was just because he’d been holding back his voice and motion for much too long. The noise triggered something in him, though. One little shout, and Shouyou lost control of his entire body.

“Hinata-kun?”

“Hinata?”

“Shou-chan!”

Shouyou’s arms raised and lowered, his legs twitched, his shoulders shrugged, and his face scrunched all at the same time. The worst of it was his head, whipping to the side and back to the front over and over again. The movement was so fast and forceful, that Shouyou was worried his head would corkscrew off his neck.

He had never had so many tics at once. It was obviously alarming to his classmates, who were all calling his name.

“He’s having a seizure, let’s get him on his side,” the instructor said. Shouyou wanted to argue, say that all of his twitching was as voluntary as it ever had been. He just had to ride this all out. But before he could, he was being picked up out of his chair and laid on the floor.

Shouyou had stopped moving by the time the ambulance came to get him. Or, at least, he didn’t look like he was having a seizure anymore. Even getting every tic out of him at once wasn’t enough to keep him still for very long. The paramedics looked at him with concern when he jerked his head to the side as they helped him into the back of the ambulance.

Kouji ran up to Shouyou before class on Monday. “Hey, Sho-chan, are you okay? I heard what happened during the practice exam.” His eyes were wide with concern, and Shouyou laughed. It was always funny when Kouji was serious for a change.

“Yeah! The doctors said it was no big deal, I just have Tourette’s, and it gets super crazy if I try to sit still for too long.” Shouyou spoke like he was talking about the weather or his history class, not like he was announcing a neurological disorder to a close friend. If anything, the smile on his face grew wider when he was talking to Kouji.

“Tourette’s?” Izumi asked, sneaking up behind them and pinching Kouji’s sides. Kouji didn’t even pout, just kept staring at Shouyou.

“Yeah! It’s this brain thing where like… you have all these little motions you have to do? Like you have to do them,” he explained.

Izumi’s eyes sparked with understanding. “So the arm flapping…?” he asked as tactfully as he could. Shouyou nodded quickly. His cheeks flushed, but his smile grew brighter.

“Yeah! And the nose twitching, and the head shaking, and the humming, and the hair twirling, and the arm stuff, and the jumping stuff, and even the shouting stuff!” he yelled, demonstrating each of his tics as he listed them. Izumi giggled behind his hand, and Kouji pouted.

“But isn’t that a bad thing? Like… like that you have the brain-thingy? Isn’t that bad?” he asked.

Shouyou shrugged. “Well, I mean… Not really. Most people grow out of Tourette’s, so I won’t have to put up with it for long, I don’t think, and if it’s really bad, there’s medication I can take. But mostly it’s a good thing, you know? To know that I have it? That’s good because now I won’t get in trouble for twitching in class and my mom promised to stop yelling at me for tangling my hair. Like… like it’s good to know what is wrong with me. And it’s good to know that I really can’t help it. Like, I always said I couldn’t stop moving around, but now I know that’s really true, and it’s like…” Liberating. “It’s just good, I guess.”

Kouji nodded, but he looked pale. Izumi beamed and clapped Shouyou on the back. “Great! Even I was getting tired of hearing sensei yell at you for bouncing in your seat, I’m glad we don’t have to deal with that anymore!” Izumi said as he pushed their trio towards their classroom.

Shouyou twirled his hair and nodded with a brilliant smile. He was so relieved to know that he wasn’t crazy, that there really was something different about him. He had been living with these tics for so long without knowing what they were, it was alleviating to have a name for it.

Shouyou had Tourette’s. And even if it meant he got bullied, and even if it meant he got yelled at, at least he didn’t have to blame himself anymore. He had a neurological disorder to blame for his bad behavior. Shouyou didn’t have to feel guilty, or stupid, or anything.

And one day it was supposed to go away.

This was temporary. Most people grew out of Tourette’s by the time they were twenty. Shouyou could wait until then. All he had to do was bide his time with this silly disorder, deal with the bullies, and struggle through his homework, and one day it would all be over. Shouyou would be normal; he just had to be patient.

Except sometimes being patient wasn’t easy.

“Ah!” Shouyou yelped before slapping his hands over his mouth. His elbows flapped out at his sides. Public libraries tended to be bad places for Shouyou to hang out, especially when he had no way of controlling his volume or his voice.

However, he had entrance exams coming up. If he wanted to pass, he needed to study. Half the school was packed into the library. Shouyou could feel the stress radiating off of his classmates, and even the librarians looked tense. Meanwhile, Shouyou was distracting absolutely everyone with his constant twitching and noise-making.

“Shou-chan, are you okay?” Izumi whispered, looking up at him with concern.

Shouyou nodded. “I’m fine,” he lied. One of the things the doctors had talked to him and his mother about was his inattention and his reading and writing problems. Apparently they were common symptoms for people with Tourette’s. But just because Shouyou had difficulty with these things, that didn’t mean he was exempt from his entrance exams. The more he thought about how much material he still hadn’t studied, still didn’t know, the more anxious Shouyou became, and the harder it was to study.

The doctors said that anxiety and Tourette’s often walked hand in hand. Not only was Shouyou likely to feel more stressed than his classmates, but additionally, the more anxious he became, the harder it was to keep from ticking.

Izumi frowned. “Are you sure? Because you’re supposed to be quiet in the-“

“Mmmmm!” Shouyou hummed, bouncing his feet up and down on the floor.

“-Library,” Izumi finished. He looked pained. “Listen, maybe it would be better if you studied at home, yeah? You don’t do well in quiet spaces like these,” he said with a wince. His eyes flickered down to Shouyou’s still stomping feet.

“But I can’t study at home.” Shouyou’s neck burned as he realized how many people were staring at him. While it was nice to have a name for his behavior, that didn’t stop Tourette’s from embarrassing him on a daily basis. “Natsu wants to play, and my mom needs me to do chores, I can’t focus there.”

A student at the table next to them bristled. “Well, we can’t focus with you here,” he snapped.

Kouji finally looked up from his textbook. His face turned redder than Shouyou’s. “Hey! He can’t help it! You don’t know what he’s going through, it hurts him to make him sit still!” he shouted much too loudly.

Even Shouyou’s ears felt hot as he blushed. “Kouji-“

“No! No, it’s not fair that everyone makes fun of you, just because they don’t know! They don’t know what’s wrong with your brain! They don’t know anything, and it… it sucks! Everyone teases you! Even me, I used to tease you and yell at you all the time, and it’s not… it’s not… f-f-fair-“

Kouji started crying and Izumi snapped his textbook closed. “Maybe we should leave,” he suggested, although he said it like an order. Izumi threw Kouji’s things into his backpack and lead him out by the arm. Shouyou quickly scurried after them with his things, but he didn’t speak until they made it outside.

“Kouji,” Shouyou murmured, not sure if he should talk just yet. His friend looked up at him with watery eyes. “It’s okay that people make fun of me. It’s even okay that you did. For a while, not even I knew what was wrong with me, and I thought it was weird, too, you know? I don’t… I don’t move like normal people, not everyone is going to be understanding of that, especially when moving is a choice for them instead of a necessity.”

“I just… I hate it.”

“I hate it, too,” Shouyou agreed.

“Promise me that you won’t let any bullies follow you to high school, Shouyou. And promise you’ll only hang out with people who are nice to you, like Izumi.”

Izumi flushed. “Kouji-“

Kouji’s eyes flashed. “I mean it. No one gets to call you dodo anymore. You’re not a flightless bird; I’ve seen how you jump. You could be something incredible one day. Promise me you’ll make sure that happens.”

“I… I promise,” Shouyou replied nervously. He shook his head, this time on purpose, trying to force every ounce of timidity out of his body. “I promise!” he yelped, this time louder. His hands curled into fists, and he held them close to his chest. “I’m going to be great in high school!”

“Good,” Kouji agreed. He sniffled for a second, but all signs of tears quickly fell from his face. He ruffled Shouyou’s hair. “Now, let’s go to somewhere else to study, okay? My house is quiet, and my mom bought pistachios yesterday.”

“Perfect. Dealing with you two has made me hungry,” Izumi teased, elbowing Kouji in the side.

A smile crept up over Shouyou’s lips, and he fell instep alongside his two friends. Choosing a high school was going to be difficult. Picking a school far away would be best; he could get a fresh start. However, going to a high school in another town would mean playing volleyball without Izumi and Kouji -two of the greatest teammates he could ever ask for.

But Shouyou was ready for a change.

Chapter Text

Shouyou stomped out of morning practice, his tics worse than usual due to his agitation.

Stupid, Kageyama. He’s so dumb.

When Kouji had made him promise to make a better life for himself in high school, he was pretty sure that Kageyama Tobio was exactly the kind of person Kouji didn’t want him to associate with. He was cranky, he was mean, and he was always yelling at Shouyou for being too loud and moving too much.

In fact, half the students in Karasuno were the exact people Kouji had told him to avoid. Or at least, it felt that way to Shouyou. While Karasuno was a fresh slate, Shouyou was still an outsider. He was far away from home, while most of the students at his new school lived nearby. Everyone else called each other by their first names and nicknames, while Shouyou still had to stick “-san” onto the last name of every person he met. Everyone was unfamiliar, and no one knew what to do with his tics.

Especially not Kageyama.

Shouyou pouted and scrunched his nose over and over as he made his way up to the clubroom to change before class. It was too early in the morning to have to deal with Kageyama yelling at him for shouting during practice. Shouyou was barely awake; he could hardly deal with his motor tics, let alone his more complex vocal ones.

“Agh!” Shouyou yelled, stomping up the steps. He wasn’t sure if the noise was voluntary or not, he was so mad.

“Dumbass, stop screaming for two seconds,” Kageyama complained, brushing past Shouyou and opening the door to the clubroom. Shouyou stood dumbfounded for a minute. Even when they weren’t in practice, Kageyama was telling him to shut up.

His hands balled up by his sides, and Shouyou tilted his head down as anger bubbled up in him. “Kageyama, you idiot! Sometimes you have to yell!” he complained. He was so mad; his arms flapped uselessly at his sides.

“Not as often as you do. It’s annoying, and you should be more focused.”

Shouyou’s cheeks flushed red. It always came back to how Shouyou should be working harder, how he needed to practice more. He knew he wasn’t the best at volleyball, but –geez- did Kageyama have to remind him of it every three seconds?

His arms flapped a little more quickly at his sides. He needed to change into different clothes, but the stress of arguing with Kageyama all day and the exhaustion that came from early morning practice were making his tics more severe than normal. He couldn’t control his arms enough to search his bag for deodorant or try to take off his sweaty t-shirt.

“I’m plenty focused,” he muttered under his breath. Shouyou didn’t want to let Kageyama have the last word, but he also didn’t want to keep arguing with him. The upperclassmen were starting to filter into the clubroom, and Kageyama had a habit of embarrassing him when they fought. He was still new to the team. He was still trying to make a good impression. The last thing he needed was Kageyama reminding everyone how bad he was at volleyball.

He stared into his locker as he waited for his arms to settle down. Eventually, he was able to stop flapping and start getting dressed, but he started humming to compensate.

He didn’t notice he was making noise until Yamaguchi started singing along to the tune.

“You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life,” he sang quietly in English, until Tsuki punched him in the ribs to make him shut up. Shouyou winced, feeling somewhat responsible, but he didn’t stop humming (he couldn’t stop humming). Fortunately, Yamaguchi wasn’t the only one to know the words.

“You’re a teaser, you turn them on! Leave them burning and then you’re goooooooone! Looking out for another, anyone will do. You’re in the mood for a dance!” Nishinoya practically screamed. Shouyou could have sworn the shelves rattled from the noise.

Everyone seemed vaguely annoyed until Tanaka shouted, “AND WHEN YOU GET THE CHANCE!” at the top of his lungs. And then the whole team was singing.

Or, well, the whole team excluding Tsuki and Kageyama.

“You are the Dancing Queen! Young and sweet, only seventeen! Dancing queen, feel the beat from the tambourine! You can dance! You can jive! Having the time of your life. Ooooh!” Shouyou belted loudly. Somehow his anxious humming had turned into happy singing, and Nishinoya ruffled his hair while they both tried to sing louder than anyone else in the room. “See that girl! Watch that scene! Digging the dancing queen!”

“Dude, where did that song even come from? I only hear that at karaoke with my parents,” Nishinoya said after they’d finished the last of the lyrics.

Shouyou shrugged. He didn’t get to choose what he hummed; his tics had a mind of their own. “Dunno. The tune was just in my head, I guess.”

Nishinoya snickered and clapped him on the back. “Hinata, you’re such a weird kid. Don’t ever change,” he said kindly before running away.

Shouyou watched as the libero jumped onto Asahi’s back and started yelling about getting piggybacked to class. He was eavesdropping and rolling on deodorant when Kageyama snuck up on him again. “You just like making noise, don’t you?” he asked, seemingly put out.

Shouyou flashed him a smile. “No. I just like annoying you.”

 Shouyou groaned voluntarily as he got back another failed quiz. He had no idea how he would past the final exam for this course. He had yet to find a teacher to understand how difficult it was for him to read and write. Hinata needed a whole testing period just to read the questions on a test, let alone answer them. With his constant head turning and facial tics, he couldn’t even look at the page long enough to process what was written down.

And to be honest, asking Shouyou to study was an evil thing to do. There were only a few things that could take away Shouyou’s tics; sleep and volleyball were the only things that could keep him still. Therefore, studying was near impossible. He couldn’t study very well when he was constantly moving, especially when he had to get up and hop around every couple of minutes.

Shouyou took forever to read, he took forever to learn, and he took forever to study.

Needless to stay, his grades were suffering. Shouyou stuffed his test into his backpack as his class was dismissed. He had been hoping he would be able to sneak out without anyone asking him how he did on the practice exam, but unfortunately, Kageyama saddled up next to him as he tried to leave.

“How did you do?” he asked, towering over Shouyou but not looking at him. Shouyou had noticed Kageyama really only made eye contact when he was insulting him. Whenever he was trying to be a normal human being and have a real conversation, it was almost as if he was too embarrassed to look at him straight on.

“Not great,” Shouyou admitted, biting his bottom lip.

Kageyama scoffed. “Idiot. If you’d just pay attention in class, you wouldn’t be failing.”

“Well, what’s your excuse?!” Shouyou complained, shouting at the end of his phrase without meaning to.

“You don’t even know how I did!”

“You probably failed! Because you fail at everything! Stupid Kageyama!” Shouyou said loudly, a hand reaching up to twist at his hair. He scrunched his nose a few times. It wasn’t typical for him to have vocal, motor, and facial tics all at the same time, at least not to this extent. But Shouyou hadn’t slept well –which usually made his tics worse- and now he had to go home and explain his grades to his mom –which stressed him out- and he was self-conscious with Kageyama teasing him. It was all triggering, and he found himself hopping every couple of steps on top of everything else.

“At least I’m not some overly energetic freak,” Kageyama replied, smacking Shouyou on the back of the head and walking to practice without him. Shouyou pulled at his hair and screamed in frustration, once again not sure how much of the movement was a tic and how much was on purpose.

“Shou-chan! Will you jump rope with me?” Natsu whined through Shouyou’s bedroom door.

Shouyou sighed. “Now?” he asked, voice watery. It had been another hard day at school. High school’s homework was so much more difficult and time consuming than middle school’s homework had been; it was exhausting. He didn’t have any friends in his class yet; he wasn’t doing as well as he would have hoped in volleyball. Tsuki was mean to him, Kageyama was mean to him, no one understood him-

“Please?” Natsu asked nicely, interrupting his self-deprecating thoughts.

“I dunno, Natsu. I don’t feel so good,” he replied, hugging a pillow and trying to hold back tears. He rolled to face the wall when the door to his room slid open. Shouyou didn’t want Natsu to see him acting so pathetic.

Despite how tired and stressed he felt, his tics melted away when he felt two little hands on his arm. “Do you feel sick?” Natsu asked, leaning over him. Shouyou blushed under her peering eyes.

“No. Or, I mean… I guess.” He scrunched his nose and his head turned into the mattress a couple of times. “I’m not really sure.”

Natsu seemed to ponder this for a moment. She crawled up on the mattress and tapped her upper lip in thought. Shouyou snuck a glance up at her, her knees warm and pressed into his back, and watched as her whole face lit up. “Well, don’t worry! Doctor Natsu is here to help!” she said excitedly. Shouyou didn’t know how happy she was to help over how happy she was to have something to do.

His little sister rushed out of the room but was back in a few moments with some Band-Aids, some ice pops, and her princess blanket. Shouyou sat up a bit. “Is the grape one for you or for me?”

“For you,” Natsu offered graciously, throwing the pink blanket over him and jumping up on top. Shouyou’s tics had come back in full force, but he knew they wouldn’t disturb Natsu, even if some of his more complex motor tics shook the bed a bit. She had grown up with Shouyou shaking his head and flapping his arms. She was used to it, but more than that, she didn’t mind it. Even Shouyou’s mom got on his case for moving around too much, but Natsu had never said one negative word towards him.

She was maybe the best little sister he could have asked for.

“Where are the Band-Aids going?” he asked, cheering up a little. Natsu looked cute, with a blue ice pop hanging from her mouth and her tiny hands struggling with the bandage packaging.

“Oh, you know,” Natsu said flippantly as she freed a Band-Aid and stuck it across Shouyou’s nose. Shouyou laughed out loud. It soon became a game of putting Band-Aids in the silliest places Natsu could think of, and Shouyou ended up with bandages covering both eyebrows, the corners of his mouth, and over his Adam’s apple.

“You’re a nuisance,” he giggled, catching Natsu and tickling her sides.

His little sister squealed and wormed out of his grasp. “No!” she yelped, running away from him and Shouyou leapt out of bed to chase after her.

They ended up running outside and finishing their ice pops in the front yard. “Wanna jump rope now?” Shouyou asked. “I feel much better.” Jumping rope wasn’t exactly fun now that he was in high school, but with how nice Natsu was to him, Shouyou felt like he owed her one.

“Yeah!” the little girl squeaked, rushing inside right away to get the ropes. Shouyou lay back in the grass while he waited, looking up at the sky. Maybe school wasn’t always easy, but being home certainly was.

Shouyou hopped a couple times in place before the practice match started. His face scrunched and twitched uncontrollably. Kenma tilted his head at him on the other side of the net.

“You do that a lot,” he noted.

“The hopping or the face scrunching?”

Kenma arched an eyebrow. “Both?”

“Both,” Shouyou nodded. Kenma snickered behind his hand. It was weird to have all of the setter’s attention, but Shouyou didn’t mind. When he had met Kenma outside, he hadn’t thought that they would end up meeting again, let alone get along so well. It was exciting to make friends, especially with someone a year older. Hinata was friends with Nishinoya and Tanaka, of course, but they were on the same team. It was different. Kenma had no reason to make friends with Shouyou –heck, Kenma didn’t even like people- but he was still willing to talk to him.

Plus, Kenma liked him regardless of the funny faces and weird noises he tended to make. Only Izumi and Kouji had ever liked Shouyou purely by choice. He was so grateful for Kenma; making friends with him had boosted his confidence more than he could explain.

Kageyama scoffed next to him.

“And what is your problem?” Shouyou asked, nose twitching.

“Only you would make friends with someone on the opposite team,” Kageyama frowned, but it was a different frown then usual. Shouyou had gotten pretty good at telling them apart. This frown was the type of frown Kageyama wore when someone was talking about Oikawa’s tosses or Hinata’s natural talent. It was his jealous frown.

“You could make friends, too, if you stopped being such a grumpypants,” Shouyou teased.

Kageyama’s frown only deepened, but this time Shouyou couldn’t place it’s meaning. Before he had the chance to analyze it, though, the whistle blew, and for two blissful sets, Shouyou’s body only moved when he told it to.

Kenma came up to him after the match was over, Nekoma winning 25-22 and 25-23. “You know… You’re somehow stiller when you’re playing volleyball than you are when you’re just hanging out.”

Shouyou smiled, shaking his head a couple times and twisting his hands in his hair. “My mom used to say I’ve got too much energy.”

Kenma frowned. “No… Or, well, yes. But you have focused energy when you’re playing volleyball. It’s different.”

“You’re different.”

Kenma rolled his eyes. “You’re annoying.”

“You’re mom’s annoying.”

“Okay, I’ve had enough of this. Text you later, Hinata,” Kenma said, walking away from Shouyou before he had the chance to say goodbye. Shouyou flapped his arms at his side and spun around to face his team, leaping back when he found himself chest to chest with Kageyama.

“Ah, Kageyama, you’re always lurking!” he exclaimed, surprised. He blinked a few times and shook his head, arms still flapping. As much as volleyball helped to keep him distracted and still, his tics were certainly terrible lately.

“Are you really going to text Kenma later?”

“Yeah. He’s a cool guy, even if he plays for another team. Get off my case.”

Kageyama snarled and looked off to the side, arms folded over his chest defensively. He looked like an indignant toddler. “I wasn’t on your case. I was just asking, dumbass.”

“Well, ask nicer next time!” Shouyou exclaimed, his body twitching more and more the angrier he got.

“I asked perfectly nicely, you idiot! And stop moving around so much, we’re just having a conversation!” Kageyama yelled, grabbing Shouyou’s head and squeezing as hard as he could. Shouyou bit his bottom lip as his head itched to turn, and Kageyama’s strong hand kept him from moving.

“Okay, okay, just let go!”

Kageyama let go and Shouyou snuck away, digging his phone out of his bag and finding a text from Kenma already there. Maybe the friend-making in high school wasn’t going as quickly as he had hoped, but at least it was happening. Things were finally starting to look on the up and up.

Shouyou jumped up and down while he waited in line for his turn to receive one of Asahi’s serves. He hated these practice drills. With his blood still pumping from running around and jumping so much, it was nearly impossible for Shouyou to stay still while he waited for his turn to pass.

Daichi grunted when Shouyou jumped on his foot.

“Ah! Sorry!” Shouyou yelled louder than he wanted to. He slapped his palms over his mouth before his head started whipping back and forth so fast he had to keep his hands far away from his face so he wouldn’t hurt himself.

“It’s okay, it’s just… Hang back after practice, okay? I think it would be good if we talked about your nerves or… or whatever this is,” Daichi said.

Shouyou paled and immediately scrambled for an excuse to get out of talking to his captain. “Oh, well, I mean… I have to watch Natsu after practice, and I’m not feeling so great, and I’ve got homework, and-“

“It’ll just take a second. Also, it’s your turn,” Daichi replied.

Shouyou’s face scrunched twice before he heard Asahi’s powerful serve on the other side of the net. He leapt onto the court and sloppily reached his hands out to receive. The ball bounced off his arms and hit him in the face. Shouyou groaned. Today was maybe the worst day ever.

The rest of practice passed by in a blur. All too soon, Shouyou was standing in front of his captain while the other third years took their turn to clean up the gym.

Daichi crossed his arms, his face not exactly scary but not exactly comforting. “Hinata, you’re so antsy during practice. Is there something going on? Anything you want to talk about?” Daichi asked kindly, which wasn’t what Shouyou had been expecting. “Is Kageyama’s criticism making you anxious?”

Shouyou bounced on his toes and twirled his hair around one of his fingers. “No,” he answered, but then shook his head. “Or… Actually, yes. He… I dunno. But I can’t… I can’t help the fidgeting stuff. That’s different. Mostly. I mean… the stress doesn’t help, but I would still be twitchy even if I was… confident.” Shouyou was aware that he sounded weak and awkward. Daichi looked at him like he was crazy.

“What?”

“I dunno,” Shouyou replied with a wince. He crossed his eyes to look at the piece of hair he had swirled into a knot between his eyes.

“Well… Well, what do you mean you can’t help it? Are you really that nervous?”

Shouyou frowned. He had figured Daichi would yell at him. Shouyou had been chewed out by nearly every authority figure in his life for moving around too much. Even after he explained that he had Tourette’s, people still yelled at him. “I just… I mean that I can’t help it. It’s like a mosquito bite, I have to scratch it.”

“You… you scratch it?” Daichi looked hopelessly confused. Shouyou felt the exact same way.

“Not to listen in on your conversation, but I can’t help but notice it’s going nowhere,” Suga interrupted, slipping an arm around Daichi’s shoulders and leaning on him heavily. “So what’s this about? Hinata’s anxiety?”

Shouyou nodded his head frantically. “Mmhmm. And how like… Mmmmm… Like, mmmm, how it makes my tics worse. Like, mmmmm… Like my –mmmmm- humming,” he explained.

Suga stood up straight, removing his arm from Daichi. Instead, he put a caring hand on Shouyou’s shoulder. His face softened. “You have tics?” he asked in the most perfect, gentle, loving way anyone ever could have asked the question. His eyes were wide and earnest.

Shouyou’s face crumbled as he struggled not to cry. “Mhm, I have Tourette’s,” he explained, voice cracking. Normally, talking about his Tourette’s wasn’t a big deal for Shouyou. It was easier to tell people he had a disorder than to allow them to think he was being disruptive and overly squirmy on his own accord. But for some reason, telling Daichi and Suga was incredibly difficult. They were both looking at him so caringly and carefully. It had been so long since anyone had looked at him that way.

“What are tourettes?” Daichi asked, his eyebrows scrunching together.

Shouyou squeaked, holding back tears. “Is,” he corrected. “And it’s… Mmmmmm… It’s this neurological disorder, I dunno. It’s like… you have all these little motions that you have to do or it drives you crazy. Like… Mmmmm… Like…”

“Humming?” Suga filled in helpfully. “Jumping? Twirling your hair?”

Shouyou nodded, a couple tears slipping down his cheeks. “Mmhmm. I can’t… I can’t help it,” he explained.

“Of course not,” Suga replied easily, pulling Shouyou into a hug. Shouyou grabbed on tightly, a little disoriented. He hadn’t mentioned having Tourette’s to anyone on the team because he hadn’t thought it would make a difference. But the way Suga and Daichi were treating him… It made Shouyou feel like things would end up changing a lot and all for the better.

“But you’ve been a lot more twitchy lately,” Daichi pointed out as Suga and Shouyou pulled apart. “And you said that Kageyama…” The captain trailed off as he scratched the back of his neck.

Shouyou flinched. “Well… it’s not just Kageyama. Actually, it’s not really him at all. It’s just everything put together, you know? Like… It’s school, and volleyball, and I really do have to watch Natsu after practice before my mom comes home, and sometimes I have to make dinner because she works long hours, and I’m just… I’m stressed,” he explained. “And, mmmm… being stressed and tired makes it worse.”

Suga finger combed the knot out from Shouyou’s bangs as he twisted another tangle into the hair at the nape of his neck. “Okay. Well, if anything is stressing you out here, you should let your captains know about it right away. It’s our job to make sure you succeed, and you can’t do that if you feel anxious.” Suga smiled his typical, angelic smile. “You also can’t do it if you’re hiding a –what did you call it?- a neurological disorder.” He smacked Shouyou over the head playfully.

Daichi bit his bottom lip. “A neurological disorder…”

“Well, it’s not a big deal!” Shouyou backtracked. “I just have to move around sometimes. Most of the time. And it makes me a bit hyperactive, and sometimes it’s hard to pay attention, but I’m okay!”

“I’m sure you’re okay, but next time, tell us about things like that,” Daichi said. If Shouyou didn’t know any better, he would say that Daichi looked upset.

“Um… Well, I don’t have any other disorders or anything. So… So I don’t think there’ll be a next time.”

“Good,” Daichi said firmly. He clapped Shouyou on the shoulder. “Don’t get any more, okay? And let us know about how we can lower your stress, or help you feel less tired, or whatever else you need if you can think of anything.”

Shouyou nodded. “Okay… And you’re not mad about the moving around so much, right?”

“Not mad at all,” Daichi promised.

“Me either,” Suga agreed.

Shouyou sighed, a weight off his shoulders. “Okay… Okay. Can I get changed now?”

“Please,” Daichi said invitingly, giving him a little shove towards the door. Shouyou laughed and ran off, nearly crashing into Asahi as the three third years stayed behind to finish cleaning the gym. That had gone much better than anticipated. Maybe he should try to tell more people at Karasuno about his Tourette’s.

“Onii-chan, you’re making squeally noises!” Natsu pointed out at the dinner table. Shouyou groaned and hid his face in both hands.

“Ugh, I know, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry!” Natsu replied, holding a piece of pork up high with her chopsticks and looking at it with crossed eyes. Shouyou did the same, curious to know what she found so interesting about holding her food up above her, while he continued to make high pitched vocal tics. “It’s new, though, right? The squeally hiccupy thing?”

Shouyou winced. He stuffed his pork into his mouth and poked at the rest of his food. “Yeah, I guess… I dunno.” He blinked hard.

“The blinking is new, too.”

“You know, you’re pretty perceptive for someone who can’t even read yet,” Shouyou replied, not ready to face the reality that he had new tics he had to deal with. He had thought his Tourette’s would have started to go away by now; he would have never guessed that it would still be getting worse. The high-pitched noises he kept omitting were rare –they only really happened at home when he was exceptionally bored- but they were extremely noticeable. The eye blinking was more frequent, but he had thought that he was done developing facial tics.

“I can read!” Natsu exclaimed. She looked put out. “I can read all the books I have!”

“Then why do you always ask me to read your bedtime story?” Shouyou asked, stabbing a piece of meat with a chopstick and leaving it there. He wasn’t hungry anymore. If he was ever going to grow, he would have to start eating more, but right now he was feeling too anxious.

Natsu frowned. “Because you read it better. And I miss you.”

Shouyou laughed a bit. “How can you miss me when we spend all evening together?”

“I don’t miss you right away!” Natsu exclaimed. She looked adorable with her hair threatening to burst out of her pigtails and a tiny pout on her face. “I miss you when I’m sleeping.”

Shouyou didn’t have it in his heart to argue that you couldn’t miss someone while you were asleep. “Well, then, maybe you should sleep in my room more often,” he suggested. Their mom usually let Natsu pull her mattress into Shouyou’s room, even on school nights as long as they weren’t up too late. Sometimes Shouyou woke himself and Natsu up in the middle of the night with a vocal tic, but other than that, they didn’t keep each other awake.

Natsu brightened considerably. “Tonight?”

“Sure.”

“Can we get ready now?”

“It would probably be best to finish dinner and have a bath first.”

“Will you read to me?” Natsu asked. Her cheeks were flushed, and Shouyou smiled despite the facial tics trying to control his expression. His nose wrinkled, his eyes blinked, his head turned.

“Natsu, I’ll always read to you. As long as you don’t mind how slow I am,” he promised, trying not to feel too down on himself for not being able to read to his sister as well as he would have liked.

Natsu beamed. “I think you read perfect!” she promised. Her free hand grabbed onto Shouyou’s while she struggled to pick up a particularly tricky piece of pork with her chopsticks. A smile took over Shouyou’s face, and he squeezed her hand back. Natsu always knew just how to cheer him up.

Shouyou was having a really bad day. Normally, he could pass as a normal person in spite of his tics, but today, he knew he probably looked crazy. His head kept shaking, his nose kept crinkling, and he kept scrunching his eyes shut. Earlier, Kageyama had told him that he looked dumber than usual, and Shouyou was sure it was because of his increased blinking. Meanwhile, his hair was crazier than usual due to the all the twirling and pulling he was putting it through.

But worse than the motor tics were the vocal tics. Shouyou was used to being loud and randomly yelling the ends of his sentences, but he had been shouting all day. Asahi had jumped away from him –terrified- when he had screamed “good morning” earlier.

He was even randomly shouting and squeaking during class. Shouyou’s cheeks had been bright pink since the first hiccup-noise had left his throat. The other kids had been shooting him weird looks all morning.

Fortunately, Shouyou wouldn’t have to sit still or be quiet for much longer. Daichi was giving them some advice and criticisms after practice, but once that was done, Shouyou would be able to go home and be as loud as he wanted. He just had to make it through this one speech.

“Eep!” Shoot. Shouyou hid his face in his knees when his teammates turned to look at him. He was so sick of everyone staring at him; it made him feel so awkward. Shouyou felt a hand on his knee, and he looked up to meet Suga’s eyes. The other boy was smiling at him understandingly. However, just as Shouyou was about to smile back- “Ah!”

“Hinata, are you feeling okay?” Daichi said, pausing his speech. Even Takeda and Coach Ukai were looking at him from their spot chatting in the doorway.

“He’s fine,” Suga answered, rubbing Shouyou’s knee for a second before refocusing on the captain.

Shouyou felt Kageyama bristle next to him as Daichi continued talking without reprimanding him for making noise. Shouyou shouted again, followed by two squeaks, three head turns, and a long hard blink before he decided that enough was enough. He had to at least be able to sit through a speech from his captain. Shouyou could suppress his tics for thirty or so seconds, until Daichi was done talking.

Shouyou’s hands fisted at his side. He stayed focused on sitting perfectly still on the gymnasium floor, not moving a single muscle. Kageyama was sitting so close, he could feel the other boy relax as Shouyou managed to stay silent for a couple seconds.

“So, that’s it! You guys are doing great, we just have to keep working on our receives, and tighten our blocking, and we’ll be-“

“Ah!” Shouyou gasped, his head whipping to the side so quick he thought he might get whiplash. His arms flapped at his side while several vocal tics forced their way out of his mouth at once. It was always so much worse when he tried to hold his tics back. Shouyou turned bright red as he started to hum some song from a cat food commercial.

“Dumbass! Stop making noise when the captain is talking!” Kageyama shouted.

“Ah, actually Kageyama, I’m not mad-“

“Idiot, you’re mmmmm-making noise, too!” Shouyou complained, his face hot from embarrassment, anger, and the exertion of ticking so much at once.

“Only because no one else is telling you to stop being so obnoxious.”

“Oi!” Daichi yelled before things could escalate any further. “Hinata can shout and hum as much as he needs to-“

“Ha!”

“As long as he’s not shouting at Kageyama,” Daichi finished in his most commanding captain tone. Shouyou nodded and stuck his tongue out at his rival, happy that he had told Daichi and Suga about his disorder. It having the two most powerful members on the team take his side certainly made putting up with Kageyama a lot easier.

Kageyama for his part looked annoyed, but he didn’t talk back to the upperclassmen. Instead, he glared at his toes while Daichi dismissed everyone to get changed. Shouyou sort of wanted to say something to him –maybe explain why he was getting special treatment- but Tanaka wrapped an arm around his shoulders before he got the chance.

“So Hinata is the new favorite, huh? I’ve been replaced!” the wing spiker moaned.

Suga arched an eyebrow. “You were never the favorite, Ryuu,” he replied dismissively, elbowing Tanaka in the side. Shouyou snickered behind his hand, all thoughts of Kageyama’s frowny face forgotten.

(Monday at 8:02am) From: Kenma Kozume 

You’ve been quiet today. Are you okay?

(Monday at 8:03am) From: Hinata Shouyou
Quiet?
Kenma, how can I be quiet?
Texting is always quiet!
That’s the point of not calling each other on the phone!

(Monday at 8:06) From: Kenma Kozume
The point of not calling each other on the phone is so that I don’t have to actually talk to you. Or anyone.
But I mean normally you text me more.
And you use more ugly emojis.

(Monday at 8:34) From: Hinata Shouyou
I’m in CLASS. I’m FOCUSING.

(Monday at 10:45) From: Kenma Kozume
Never stopped you before.

Shouyou sighed at his phone during his lunch break. He stiffened when a dark shadow fell over him. “So are you okay?” Kageyama asked, surprising Shouyou so much that he jumped three feet in the air.

“Ah! Haven’t you ever heard that it’s impolite to read other people’s text messages?” he asked, covering his fear with anger. He hated it when Kageyama managed to sneak up on him like this. It always made him feel like he was losing. Shouyou couldn’t stand losing.

Kageyama’s face screwed up with frustration, but he didn’t snap like usual. “I asked you a question first. Are you okay? Kenma’s right, you’ve been acting weird lately.”

“I’m not weird!”

The look Kageyama sent him said it all. “Yes, you are, but that’s okay, if you’d just-“ The setter cut himself off, staring angrily down at his milk box. Kageyama did everything angrily, though, so Shouyou had no idea what he was mad about this time. It was his constant state of being. Anything could set him off.

“If I’d just what?”

“I dunno.”

“Just what?!”

“I said I dunno!” Kageyama said. He turned to face Shouyou, and for a split second, he could have sworn he saw something other than anger in Kageyama’s eyes. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say that the other boy looked… concerned. “Why do you talk to Kenma about this kind of stuff, anyway? He’s not even on our team.”

“Yeah, but he’s nice,” Shouyou replied, blinking a few times. His nose twitched. His knees hopped as his legs tried to jump while he was still sitting down. “And he doesn’t yell at me, unlike some people I know.”

“I don’t yell at you,” Kageyama pouted, crossing his arms. Shouyou couldn’t help but crack a smile at that.

“Yeah, you do. You have absolutely no self-awareness, do you?”

“I don’t even know what that means,” Kageyama replied, flopping back in the grass. Shouyou finished up his carrots –cut into stars like how Natsu liked them- before nudging Kageyama’s shin with his toe.

“Hey, toss for me.”

“Our lunch break is over in ten minutes.”

“So toss to me for ten minutes, then,” Shouyou replied easily, dusting off his hands as he stood up. Kageyama was slow to jump up and join him, but he eventually did. Lately Kageyama had been working on his serves, and he had wanted Shouyou to work on his receives, so instead of just tossing and spiking, he’d serve a ball as hard as he could to either side of Shouyou, and only if he managed to receive it, would Kageyama toss to him.

It was annoying, but his receives really did need some work, so he didn’t complain, even as he ran after the sixth missed ball in a row. Any kind of volleyball practice was a good and necessary break from all his twitching. Sometimes Tourette’s felt exhausting, and while volleyball wasn’t easy, it at least kept his brain distracted from twitching. To Shouyou, it almost felt like sleep.

“We’re going to be late to class,” Kageyama said, serving to Shouyou anyway.

“We’re always late,” he replied flippantly, diving for the ball and successfully passing it to Kageyama. “Yes, finally!”

“Don’t start cheering now, dumbass. Focus on spiking.” Shouyou’s eyes scrunched up, and he focused all of his energy and effort into his legs hopping and his arm rotating. His palm met the ball blindly, and Shouyou opened his eyes just in time to see it smack the ground, dirt and grass flying up from the impact. He looked to Kageyama, excited, but the other boy was scowling.

“What?”

“Why do you always close your eyes?”

Shouyou stuck a hand on his hip and arched an eyebrow. “I thought we’ve been over this?”

Kageyama looked flustered. He was anxiously pulling at his sleeves, which Shouyou had never seen him do before. Actually, he had never seen him look nervous at all. “But why do you close your eyes for my tosses, but you don’t… you don’t… text me?” he asked. Shouyou tilted his head to the side. Kageyama’s tone was as angry as ever, but his eyes looked wide and –yes- that definitely was concern.

“Text you?”

“Like Kenma.”

“Oh,” Shouyou replied. “I dunno, I just don’t.”

“Okay,” Kageyama said passively, but his shoulders seemed tense. If Shouyou could read the other boy’s body language like he thought he could, he’d say that Kageyama was upset. However, he didn’t know why Kageyama was upset when he had literally never once seen Kageyama with his phone out. Why would he want him to text him?

They both stood there awkwardly a minute before Kageyama walked away to grab the volleyball and Shouyou had to wrap up his lunch. The walk back to class was tense. Guilt pooled inexplicably in Shouyou’s stomach.

(Thursday at 7:53pm) From: Hinata Shouyou

You want to text? Fine, we can text.

(Thursday at 7:56pm) From: Kageyama Tobio
I dnt WANT 2 txt u dumbass

(Thursday at 7:68pm) From: Hinata Shouyou
But you said you wanted to on Monday! You were all mad about it!

(Thursday at 8:32pm) From: Kageyama Tobio
Ur so stupid

Thursday at 8:33pm) From: Hinata Shouyou
>:(

Shouyou had stayed up way too late studying for a quiz last night. Way too late. And he was pretty sure he failed, so all of that studying didn’t even matter. He was exhausted, and the anxiety from the test-taking was still coursing through his body. Being so tired and so anxious were terrible for his Tourette’s, and his tics were on their absolute worst behavior.

His twitching was bordering on ridiculous. Usually, a scrimmage would be just the thing to get his head in the game and not focused on his tics, but as much as Shouyou wanted to take a break from his Tourette’s, his brain didn’t.

His knees bounced as he hopped in place. His eyes blinked, his head shook. His nose scrunched, his hands couldn’t stay out of his hair. His whole body was one big twitchy mess, and it was humiliating. Shouyou almost felt like crying, as the scrimmage seemed to pass him by. He couldn’t watch the ball with his head turning so often, and he couldn’t chase after it with his legs forcing him to hop all over the court like a bunny.

“Hinata! Look out!”

Shouyou tried to watch for the ball, but his head decided to shake at the absolute worst moment. He scrunched his eyes closed –the motion completely voluntary- when he saw a volleyball flying towards him out of the corner of his eye. Shouyou’s body fell backwards as one of Asahi’s serves hit him directly in the jaw.

There was a loud cracking noise, and Shouyou realized a second later that the sound had been his head bouncing off the floor.

“Oh no, Hinata? Hinata, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry. I thought you would have received it, I was aiming right in front of you, I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Asahi apologized, rushing over to the other side of the net.

It seemed like everyone deemed the moment appropriate to hover over Shouyou, but it only served to make Shouyou feel overwhelmed. His head hurt. His jaw hurt. He felt like he was about to snap from all of the twitching, but not moving only made it worse. Plus, getting hit in the face reminded him of all the awful bullies in middle school, and how ironic was it that the team he was on now was nicknamed “the flightless birds,” when that is exactly what people called Shouyou before he came to Karasuno?

“Don’t apologize, he’s the idiot who should have been paying attention,” Kageyama said as Shouyou sat up, disoriented. His head hurt. Did he mention his head hurt? He put a hand on the back of his scalp, fingering the spot where it hit the ground. Even just brushing over the area with his nails made him wince, and he pulled his hand away, looking at his fingers in horror. “Dumbass, I keep telling you. You have to be more focused.”

Shouyou looked up at Kageyama.

His bottom lip wobbled.

“Oh, Hinata,” Suga sighed sweetly before Shouyou promptly burst into tears. Loud, ugly sobs filled the room as his vice captain rubbed his back to try to get him to calm down. A peek at Kageyama’s face showed that he looked absolutely terrified, while the rest of the team looked rather confused.

“I can’t- I can’t- I’m so… so tired,” he choked out between wheezing breaths. Suga scratched his back in acknowledgement.

“Hey, don’t worry about explaining. Focus on not crying first,” he suggested. Shouyou nodded and covered his mouth with both hands as he started to hum again. His eyes blinked. His nose scrunched. “You’ve seemed tired, you’ve been moving much more than usual.” Shouyou made a squeaking noise in agreement.

When it became clear that Shouyou wasn’t going to relax any time soon, Daichi herded everyone to the opposite side of the gym, forcing them to do practice drills while Shouyou cried so hard, he was practically choking.

His head hurt.

Daichi left the rest of the team to practice with Coach Ukai yelling in their ears. He sat down on the floor next to Shouyou and Suga. “We’ll pick up the scrimmage in a few minutes. Shouyou, do you need to go to the nurse? Or are you just upset cause you’re… I dunno, are you nervous like how Asahi gets?”

Almost as if on cue, Nishinoya’s voice rang out from the other side of the gym: “Come on, Asahi, it was an accident! Shake it off! Focus!”

Shouyou reached up to feel his head again. “Both,” he answered decisively.

“Okay. Would it be okay if Asahi took you? He’s probably going to be useless until he feels like you’ve forgiven him. Plus, I feel like he’d probably understand about the whole… nervous thing, I dunno,” Daichi said, scratching the back of his neck.

“Yeah, Asahi is the most high-strung person I know,” Suga snickered.

Asahi looked over at them through the net as if he could hear them talking about him. Shouyou scrubbed tears from his cheeks, taking in the other boy’s slouched shoulders and worried eyes. Daichi was right, Asahi probably needed to take him to the nurse as much as Shouyou needed someone to take him there. “Will Asahi carry me there?”

“Yes,” Daichi answered surprisingly definitively when he hadn’t asked Asahi if he would or wouldn’t. The captain straightened and shouted to the other side of the gym. “Asahi! Get over here!” he shouted. Asahi started to walk over and Nishinoya started to follow him. “No, just Asahi. No… No… No, Nishinoya, just Asahi. There you go, stay on that side of the net.” Asahi came over looking confused and distressed. “You’re taking Shouyou to the nurse.”

“Oh, um… are you sure I should be the one to-“

“Yes. Now let him ride on your back,” Daichi demanded. Asahi looked startled. Shouyou was also startled when he felt his body leave the ground. Suga was holding him up in the air, his hands under his armpits, thrusting him out towards Asahi. The hardest thing about being so small was that everyone could lift him easily.

Asahi, being the flustered, awkward giant that he was, didn’t turn around but rather picked Shouyou up by the waist and settled him on his hip like he was a toddler. Daichi looked at him like he was crazy. Shouyou was still crying and didn’t really care how he was being held; he just wanted to get to the nurse so he could take a nap. He rested his head on Asahi’s shoulder.

“Alright, fine,” Daichi replied. “Asahi, see that he’s settled and make sure he gets back here alright after he’s been checked out.”

Asahi nodded –Shouyou could feel it through his hair- and started walking them towards the door. Nishinoya looked tempted to follow. He was actually already moving towards them when Daichi caught him around the waist and forced him to hang back. Meanwhile, Shouyou made eye-contact with Kageyama for a split second as they left the gym. He looked just as lost as Nishinoya.

“Asahi,” Shouyou said, whimpering a bit into the other boy’s shoulder.

“Yeah?”

“I’m getting snot on your t-shirt.”

“Oh,” Asahi replied. “Oh, well… well, that’s okay.” He was quiet for a couple steps before apologies started flowing out of him like a fountain. “I’m… I’m so sorry about what happened, Hinata, I really didn’t mean to hurt you. I’m so sorry you hit your head, and I… I hit your jaw, and I’m sorry, I really am sorry, I’m so sorry-“

“No, don’t be. Kageyama was right, I should have been paying attention and not fidgeting so much,” Shouyou replied with a shrug.

Asahi didn’t reply for a moment. He seemed to take a long time before speaking, as if he wasn’t sure if anyone would want to hear what he had to say. Shouyou felt the same way, sometimes, so he knew how to be patient. He felt the sweaty fabric of Asahi’s shirt further dampen with tears as he waited for a response. His nose crinkled and his eyes blinked. “I mean… I mean, it seems to me like you can’t really help how much you move around.”

“Well, I can to some extent. Like… I am usually much better when I’m not stressed and when I’m well-rested,” he explained, shaking. The more he thought about how anxious he was, the more jittery he got. The crying didn’t help either, and neither did his tics.

“You’re stressed?”

“Yeah. Like… all the time.”

“So am I,” Asahi replied. His shoulders slumped and Shouyou’s head dipped. “Sorry. I’m- Sorry. It’s just like… It’s hard to not feel like I’m messing up all the time, and that makes me nervous.”

Shouyou perked up a bit, sitting up straight to look at Asahi straight on. “But you’re not messing up. You’re the ace. You’re good at everything. You’re good at volleyball, and school, and making friends. I’m not good at any of those things, I have the most reason to be nervous.”

Asahi’s tensed up, and his expression turned into something more uncomfortable than usual. “...I don’t think that’s how it works. My guidance counselor says that performance-based anxiety doesn’t have anything to do with your actual success.”

Shouyou frowned. “So even if I played volleyball really well, and got good grades, and made a lot of friends, I’d still feel like crap?”

Asahi winced. “Well, when you put it like that, it does sound pretty dismal.”

“Asahi, you’re no good at comforting people.”

“God, I know, I’m the worst.”

“You’re not the worst,” Shouyou promised. “Kageyama is probably the worst. He just yells.”

Asahi paled with fear. “He does yell. It’s terrifying.”

Shouyou laughed a little, his tears slowing to a stop. Asahi was funny, especially when he was overwhelmed. Which was all of the time. He felt guilty for letting himself get hit in the face with one of Asahi’s serves, the other boy didn’t need any more stress in his life. Shouyou scrubbed at his nose. “I don’t yell, though, you know? Most people don’t. It’s okay that you nailed me in the face.”

“That’s nice of you to say, Hinata, but it’s really not.”

“Nah, it’s fine. You carried me all the way to the nurse; you’ve more than made up for it, anyways. Don’t let Noya yell at you for messing up on the court any more today, okay?” he asked nicely as Asahi opened up the door to the nurse’s office and set him down in a chair. He immediately started ticking so hard, it was difficult to stay centered in his seat.

“Sure… Are you all right, though? You’re twitching a lot.”

“Yes, I’m fine!” Shouyou chirped. “For me, this is normal.”

Nishinoya was the first person to notice when Shouyou and Asahi made it back to the clubroom. “Asahi!” he yelled, running and leaping onto the ace with a giant hug, nearly knocking him and Shouyou onto the floor.

Asahi squawked in surprise. “Noya, we really need to talk about how to properly greet someone,” he muttered, but Nishinoya didn’t pay him any attention. Instead he crawled further up Asahi’s torso and looked down at Shouyou, who was bouncing by the third year’s side.

“Shouyou! You’re alive! How’s your head?!” he asked. Nishinoya’s eyes were already big for his face, but they look positively ginormous now. Shouyou scratched at the back of his neck awkwardly.

“It’s good… The nurse says I might have a small concussion and to take it easy for the next twenty-four hours. If it’s hard to read, I’m supposed to see her again.” Shouyou didn’t mention that it was always hard for him to read. There was a bruise webbing out from the corner of his jaw, and another lacing through his hair, but other than that he would be okay to play volleyball during their next afternoon practice.

“That’s not bad!” Tanaka said, walking into the conversation. “When I heard you hit the floor, I thought you wouldn’t be up and walking for the next three days.”

“I thought you’d be stuck in a coma,” Nishinoya agreed, nodding sagely.

“Being fed intravenously,” Tanaka tacked on.

“Alone in the hospital.”

“Only to wakeup with amnesia.”

“You’d have to relearn how to walk.”

“And how to chew.”

“And how to use the toilet.”

“You’d be plant life,” Tanaka concluded, pulling off his sweaty t-shirt so he could put on a fresh one. Shouyou laughed uncomfortably. He didn’t really like thinking about himself with a life-altering brain injury, but he was glad no one was asking him about why he was crying earlier. At least Nishinoya and Tanaka were good at breaking the tension.

Nishinoya turned to Asahi to start telling him about everything he’d missed at practice, and Shouyou took it as an opportunity to sneak away and get changed to go home. His bag was next to Kageyama’s, and he stood next to the other boy as he put on new clothes.

“Hey,” Kageyama said gruffly.

“Are you saying hello or yelling at me?” Shouyou asked, blinking hard. The new tic had completely taken over. He couldn’t remember a time where he wasn’t thinking about blinking.

Kageyama scowled. “Saying hello, obviously.” Shouyou didn’t argue, but if it had been obvious, he wouldn’t have needed to ask. There was a beat of silence –during which Shouyou counted sixteen different tics- before Kageyama spoke again. “Are you okay?”

Shouyou shoved his dirty shirt into his bag. “Yes. Geez, why does everyone keep asking me that?”

“Because you hit your head.”

Shouyou stared down at his toes. “I didn’t mean just today,” he muttered moodily. He was embarrassed for crying, and he hated how everyone could see right through him. Thinking about it made his anxiety flair up, and Shouyou’s tics went wild for a couple moments. The hair on the back of his neck stood up as he realized Kageyama was staring at him. “What?”

“What is that?”

“What is what?”

“All the twitching that you do, like…. All of the time?” Kageyama asked. Shouyou looked up at him, expecting to see Kageyama’s set into one of his hard, unfeeling frowns, but that’s not what he saw. Once again, Kageyama didn’t seem anything but concerned as he looked at Shouyou. It was starting to get scary; how nice Kageyama had been lately.

“It’s- It’s Tourette’s,” Shouyou answered, surprised that Kageyama had bothered to ask. He wouldn’t have thought Kageyama would care about his tics and why he had them.

“I don’t know what that is,” Kageyama replied.

Shouyou looked at him critically for a moment before he grabbed a pen from his bag and Kageyama’s wrist. He shook the pen before spelling out his disorder on the back of Kageyama’s hand, T-O-U-R-E-T-T-E-S. “Look it up,” he suggested, pulling on his shoes and heading out the door without sparing a glance at Kageyama’s face. 

Chapter Text

Kageyama slammed his shoes into his cubbyhole. Shouyou could hear the noise from across the genkan, and his shoulders immediately tensed up at the sound. Kageyama was mad, and there was only one person the setter ever chose to funnel his anger at.

Fingers clamped onto Shouyou’s scalp a split second later.

“You have a neurological disorder?” Kageyama practically spat, letting Shouyou’s head go only to grab him by the shoulders. Kageyama spun him around so they were facing each other. Shouyou tried not to cower in fear, but Kageyama’s grip on him was stronger than usual. In fact, Shouyou’s toes were just barely touching the floor as Kageyama held him up in the air by his arms.

“Um… yes?” he answered, not sure what was least likely to get him killed: telling the truth or lying.

Kageyama looked furious. Actually furious. Normally, Kageyama looked moody and angry, and he yelled a lot because of it. But now he looked like he was two seconds from snapping Shouyou’s head clean off of his body. “And you didn’t tell me?” Kageyama seethed, his hands trembling so hard that Shouyou felt his whole body shake in mid-air. The tips of his shoes barely centered him on the ground.

“Um,“ Shouyou was cut off with a couple vocal tics, this time squeaking noises rather than shouts, “No? You didn’t ask!”

Kageyama glared at him, and Shouyou saw his life flash before his eyes. This was it. This was the day that Kageyama finally murdered him. Hopefully, it would be quick and painless. Shouyou scrunched his eyes up, tensing in anticipation of Kageyama smacking him across the cheek or head butting him in the nose.

He waited.

And waited…

But nothing happened. Shouyou cracked one eye open to peak at Kageyama’s expression, but the other boy’s head was hanging so low that Shouyou couldn’t see his face. The other boy’s fingers tightened on his arms for a second before Kageyama let him go. Shouyou stumbled backwards. “Kageyama-“

“I shouldn’t have to ask, dumbass,” he muttered, looking off to the side. Shouyou’s nose crinkled a few times.

“Oh.”

Kageyama looked up at him for a second, eyes narrowing. “Yeah. Oh,” he mimicked, purposefully crinkling his nose just like Shouyou’s.

The action shot through Shouyou’s heart like an arrow. He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes for a moment to keep from getting upset, while his face crumbled up. It wasn’t often that people copied his tics to make fun of him –most people had more tact than that- so Shouyou wasn’t used to it. He hated seeing how stupid he looked.

Kageyama seemed to realize that he had hurt his feelings, but he didn’t look sorry about it. Instead, he just scoffed. He sounded more like Tsukki than himself, and Shouyou didn’t like this side of him. Kageyama was a jerk, but he wasn’t mean. There was a difference.

Shouyou watched as the other first-year stomped away. It didn’t occur to him that Kageyama might feel hurt, too.

“Is one of your friends in the hospital?” Shouyou’s mother asked as she served herself seconds at the dinner table.

“No?” Shouyou asked, looking up from his cellphone. Did she know something he didn’t?

“Did someone’s parents just die?”

Shouyou started to sweat. “What? No!”

“Did someone break up with their girlfriend? Overdose on drugs? Have a nervous breakdown?”

Shouyou dropped his phone on the table and sat up straight. “No! Mom, what are you talking about? Is something wrong?” he asked, his heart pounding in his chest. His mother smirked at him.

“Then why are you on your phone at the dinner table?”

Shouyou leaned back in his chair, dumbfounded. He looked up at his mother, partly impressed and partly annoyed. “You got me,” he agreed fairly. Shouyou nudged his cellphone towards the center of the table, where his mom could keep an eye on it and make sure he wasn’t using it. He didn’t get a lot of time to sit and talk with his mom –she was always working- so it was important to take the opportunity to properly spend time with her.

“Who were you texting, anyway? That Kageyama boy you’re always talking about?” his mom asked, taking a bite of guydon. Shouyou slumped and stirred his food with his chopsticks.

“Ew, no, Mom. He sucks.”

“Does he now?” she asked, “Because just last week you were telling me all about how nice it is that he tosses to you for as long as you’d like. And I know you and your stamina. He must care and awful lot to exercise with you all night long.”

Shouyou whined and started bouncing in his seat. His hands both started twirling his hair. “Mom! It’s not exercise, it’s practice, and we both need it if we’re going to be first year starters,” he explained. “It’s as much for him as it is for me.”

“Okay, okay,” his mom replied putting her hands up in surrender. “I suppose I don’t really understand your volleyball world,” she apologized. “But I still don’t understand why Kageyama suddenly isn’t your friend anymore.”

“He was never my friend,” Shouyou muttered.

Natsu started swinging her feet under the table, kicking Shouyou in the knee as she did so. “That’s not true! Mom’s right, you talk about Kageyama all the time,” she pointed out.

“Dude. I tell you these things in confidence,” Shouyou groaned while his mom and Natsu both laughed behind their hands. “You guys stink, I’m going back to texting Kenma.”

“So there’s a Kenma now?”

“Mom!”

“Kenma is from Tokyo! He plays volleyball for another team! He’s also a cat!” Natsu cheered, trading a slice of onion for one of Shouyou’s slices of beef. He let her do it. The conversation was overwhelming him a little bit, and lately he had been coming back from school absolutely knackered. Even eating wore him out. To constantly tic took energy: energy that he would love to be able to save for things like homework and volleyball practice. While everyone else had time to rest, Shouyou was bouncing in place and flapping his arms like a freak.

“Kenma isn’t a cat, he’s a person. He plays for Nekoma,” he explained to his mom, exhaustion starting to creep into his voice. Honestly, he was worried he was about to pass out face first into his beef bowl.

“What about girls? Are there any girls you’re interested in?” his mom asked kindly. She was always good at catching up with Shouyou and asking him about his friends and his life. Even if she liked teasing him sometimes, it was obvious that his mom really cared about him.

“Yeah, onii-chan. Tell us all about the ladies!” Natsu exclaimed.

Shouyou snorted and stood up from the table. Natsu squealed as Shouyou scooped her up and spun her around. “You’re the only lady in my life, and you know it!” he exclaimed. He threw her in the air and caught her safely in his arms, planting kisses all over her face as she giggled.

“You two are too much,” their mom laughed as Shouyou settled down. He sat in Natsu’s spot, keeping his sister in his lap so she could finish eating. Natsu didn’t seem disturbed when Shouyou’s knees bounced her up and down or his flapping arms kept her trapped. She didn’t even flinch when he made vocal tics in her ear.

“Wait, Mom, can I have a friend over tomorrow afternoon?” Natsu asked around a big bite of rice. She grabbed Shouyou’s chopsticks from across the table and pressed them into her brother’s hand, silently making sure that he ate more, too.

“Ask your brother. He’s the one graciously watching you on his day off,” their mother replied. Saturday was the one day Shouyou didn’t have practice, but their mom didn’t typically take a break from work on the weekends, so Shouyou stayed at home and looked after Natsu. Although, it felt less like babysitting and more like hanging out, Natsu was so easy to watch over.

“Yeah, that’s fine,” he agreed easily.

His mom looked at him. “You know, you could have friends over sometime, too. Even if you’re watching Natsu. As long as they treat her nicely, that would be okay.”

Shouyou flushed. “I’m not sure anyone would want to come.”

“Kenma would,” Natsu piped up encouragingly. “So would Kageyama. And that Noya guy, he sounds nice. And Takana sounds funny.”

“It’s Tanaka,” Shouyou corrected.

“That name is even funnier!”

“No, it’s not. But… but okay, maybe I’ll ask someone over sometime,” he agreed, if only to get everyone to stop talking about his friends. They didn’t understand how awkward it was to be the kid with tics. It made him feel like no one wanted to come over due to the mere social implications. He hardly ever invited Izumi and Kouji over in middle school, despite going to their houses all of the time.

Shouyou closed his eyes and rested his twitching nose into Natsu’s hair. He was so tired; he had no idea how he was going to get done his homework before it was time to sleep. His face scrunched a couple times, and Natsu’s head tipped back as she finished off the rice from the bottom of her bowl.

“Just let me know, and I’ll come home early and cook dinner,” his mom offered generously. Shouyou blinked his eyes open blearily, his heart swelling. Kageyama was being a jerk, but his family was so kind to him. He leaned back in his chair and stretched with a yawn.

“You guys are the best,” he decided. “I’m sure anyone I bring over would be happy to meet you.” He stood up and put Natsu back on her chair. “But I’m too tired to finish dinner. I’m going to sleep early, I think. Goodnight everyone!”

“Goodnight, Nii-chan,” Natsu replied happily.

“Goodnight,” his mom replied, narrowing her eyes at him skeptically. Shouyou chose to ignore his mother’s watchful gaze as he left the kitchen.

There was a knock on Shouyou’s door. “Come in,” he said weakly, voice cracking. His mom entered his room a second later. “What’s up?” he asked casually, like his mother hadn’t just walked in on him crying his eyes out in bed.

He was so tired, all of his emotions had just started pouring out of him.

“What’s up with me? What’s up with you?” she questioned, sitting on the edge of his bed. Shouyou sat up and pulled his knees to his chest. His mom reached out to card her fingers through his hair. “You seemed funny at dinner, and now I find you up here, crying. What’s going on? Why are you upset?”

Shouyou closed his eyes for a second, exhausted. “Honestly, I don’t even know,” he answered. And he didn’t, not really. His body was heavy with fatigue, and school and making friends were still more difficult than he would have liked. But those were things Shouyou was used to dealing with; he didn’t understand why he was suddenly crying about it now.

“Is it because of the falling out you had with Kageyama?” his mom asked. Shouyou tensed.

“How do you know anything about that?!”

“I don’t,” his mother admitted with a shrug. “I just know that you were guys were happy to get on each other’s nerves one day, and now you seem genuinely frustrated with him.”

Shouyou hummed. Happy to get on each other’s nerves. That was probably the most accurate way anyone could have described his relationship with Kageyama. “I mean… It’s not… making me feel any better to be fighting with him.”

“You’re fighting?”

“Sort of,” Shouyou replied. “I told him about my tics, and he got mad that I didn’t tell him earlier.” Shouyou’s face crumbled up. He hugged his knees even tighter as a sob forced it’s way out of his throat. He felt so stupid. “And then he made fun of me? Not –mmmm- not like a lot? But he usually doesn’t –mmmmmm- make fun of me like that. Not for things I can’t help.”

Shouyou’s mom made a sad noise and scratched his scalp soothingly, while he sniffled into his kneecaps. “It doesn’t feel good to be made fun of,” she said understandingly, but Shouyou still felt embarrassed for crying.

“I’m more, like… upset that he was that mad in the first place. I feel –mmmmm- really guilty now, mom, like I have to tell everyone I know –mmmmmm- so they don’t think I’m keeping secrets.” The thought was terrifying to Shouyou. He was so embarrassed by his Tourette’s, he didn’t want to have to tell his classmates or a whole room full of people that his brain was messed up. Even if his classmates and teammates knew about his tics (they could see and hear them, after all), that didn’t make it any less scary to put himself out there.

“I don’t think you need to tell everyone, but maybe telling your close friends would be a good idea,” his mom replied. She had switched to rubbing Shouyou’s shoulders as he tried and failed to hold back tears. “How about we make a plan to tell your team, okay? We’ll think of something we can do to make it easy for you.”

Shouyou nodded. “M’kay.”

His mom let him cry himself out for a little while longer before helping to lift his mood. “Hey, cheer up!” his mom chirped, nudging his side. “Your amazing mother has just offered to come through for you and help you make a plan. You should be jumping up and down with joy!”

Shouyou cracked a smile at that. He ducked his head to the side so his mother wouldn’t see it. Yes, he was exhausted, and he needed to sleep. But hopefully, figuring this out with his mom would make him feel less overwhelmed.

Shouyou stood by the clubroom door before morning practice, waiting for the captain to show up. He knew Daichi would arrive first –after all, he had the key to the clubroom, he had to get there to let everyone in- and Shouyou needed to talk to him. Alone.

“Hinata, you’re here bright and early.”

Shouyou’s head lifted up quickly at the sound of Daichi’s voice. He was fidgeting before, naturally, but it increased when his captain came into view. He was so nervous. He always felt anxious when he talked to Daichi. He was a third-year. While Daichi was unbelievably understanding and kind towards him, Shouyou was very conscious of the fact that he was an upperclassman and that he probably had better things to do than talk to him.

“Hai,” Shouyou replied, standing at attention. “I was…mmmmm, I was actually hoping to talk to you,” he admitted, humming as soon as he finished speaking. His eyes hadn’t stopped scrunching closed since Daichi arrived. He had yet to actually get a proper view of his captain, he was so distracted by his own blinking.

Daichi smiled warmly at him. “Okay. Don’t be nervous, I’m all ears,” he agreed, taking note of Shouyou’s increased ticking and associating it with heightened anxiety. Shouyou grimaced. It was annoying how easy he was to read, what with his tics doing so much of the talking.

“I was hoping… Well, my mom and I printed these cards,” he said, holding them up. “And I wanted to give them out before practice and maybe let the team ask questions, you know? Like before you start us up for the day?”

Daichi took one of the cards and read it over. It had all the most important, need-to-know information about Tourette’s written on it. Shouyou and his mom had found out that a lot of people with his disorder used information cards to avoid the awkward process of explaining Tourette’s, and Shouyou had jumped on board with the idea. He didn’t want to have to stand in front of the whole team –especially not Tsukki- and struggle to explain his neurological functioning problem.

“Shouyou, I think this is great,” Daichi said encouragingly. He clapped Shouyou on the shoulder, and the redhead stumbled forward a couple steps. “What made you decide to formally tell everyone?”

Shouyou winced. “I didn’t want anyone thinking I was keeping secrets.”

Daichi smiled at that: a big one that stretched from ear to ear. “Well, it’s very brave of you,” he complimented.

Shouyou bit his bottom lip and his head shook to the side a couple times. “Right,” he replied, shifting his weight from foot to foot.

Daichi’s eyes tracked all of his nervous behaviors, and his smile fell off his face a little bit. “Hey, I’ll be standing behind you the whole time, okay? We can tell them together,” he offered, backtracking a little bit. “If you get nervous, just throw things over to me, okay? I think I can field at least a few questions on the subject, I looked into all this stuff right after you talked about it the other day.” Daichi gestured to the cards Shouyou had shown him, looking so earnest and helpful that Shouyou was able to straighten up with confidence.

“You’ll be right behind me?”

“Of course, Shouyou. I’m your captain. I’ll always be right behind you.”

Shouyou nodded. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, as Daichi unlocked the clubroom door. He and his mom had talked for a long time about confidence and not being ashamed of his Tourette’s syndrome the night before. She had said a lot of helpful and useful advice, and that paired with Daichi’s support helped him feel like he could stand tall.

Shouyou started getting changed, refusing to let the confidence leave his posture. Now that he had it, he didn’t want to let it go.

His newfound self-assurance left quickly, however, when Kageyama entered the clubroom. The hair on the back of Shouyou’s neck stood up, as Kageyama slammed his gym bag down on the opposite side of the shelf. He still looked mad.

It was awkward to be so close to Kageyama when they weren’t practicing or teasing each other. Shouyou didn’t want to deal with it, so he ran away as quickly as possible, knowing that some pre-warm up stretches in the gym would probably help to clear his head and slow his tics.

He was folding over into pigeon pose when the rest of the team started entering the room.

“Hey, everyone gather around before practice,” Daichi commanded. His teammates’ response was almost immediate. Everyone circled around their captain, while Shouyou’s feet stayed glued to the floor. “Hinata, has something to share with everyone. Hinata? Are you going to come over?”

Shouyou rushed to stand with Daichi in front of all of his teammates. Everyone was staring at him, except for one important person. Kageyama was pointedly looking at the ground. Shouyou blinked his eyes hard. “Hinata?” Nishinoya asked, round eyes wide and confused.

“Oh, um, right,” Shouyou said, shaking himself out of his stupor. “So, I printed out these information cards about me, and I wanted to pass them out,” he announced. Daichi patted his back supportively before he made his way about the room, passing out cards to all of his friends.

Kageyama practically ripped his card from Shouyou’s hand.

The front side of the cards had his name and a number for more information. The back said the following:

This person has Tourette Syndrome (TS). TS may make people behave in a way that can appear to be bizarre, challenging, and even objectionable. However, the symptoms are involuntary. Although some people with TS may be able to suppress them for a while, they will eventually have to release them. Call the number on the back or visit our website for more information.

“Wait, what? Kouhai, what is this?” Tanaka exclaimed, while Shouyou finished handing out the last couple cards to Tsukishima and Yamaguchi.

He shook his head a few times and flapped his arms. Daichi guided him back to the front of the room by placing a hand on his upper back. Shouyou blinked hard. “Right, well, okay, you know all the… weird movements and noises I make sometimes?” he asked.

Tsukishima snorted. “Yeah, we’re all aware,” he replied coolly.

Shouyou winced. “Right, well, those are called tics, and I do them cause I have this neurological disorder called Tourette’s. It has a lot of other symptoms that aren’t so noticeable, though, so, for example, I have some issues with hyperactivity, and it takes me a really long time to read and write. But the tics are what you guys probably see the most and have to like… put up with.”

“Wait, I’m sorry. What’s a tic?” Asahi asked. Shouyou shook his head a couple times, a small smile on his face regardless. Asahi was so nice; he was earnestly asking about his disorder. It made Shouyou’s heart swell to know that someone on the team other than Daichi and Suga cared about his Tourette’s.

“Um… Well, for me it’s things like jumping, flapping my arms, scrunching my nose, blinking my eyes harder than normal, shaking my head, twirling my hair, shouting, humming, and squeaking,” he listed. It dawned on him that he hadn’t twirled his hair in awhile, and his fingers laced into his hair compulsively.

Nishinoya squinted down at his card. “What does ‘suppress’ mean?”

“It’s like… I can hold them down for a couple seconds, but whenever I do that, I like… freak out. It makes them twice as bad, and once I held them back so long, and ticked so bad after, that my teacher thought I was having a seizure.”

Nishinoya snorted. “Hinata, that’s terrible.”

“Yeah, that’s why I don’t hold them back.”

Shouyou’s eyes flickered over to Kageyama. He didn’t look like he was paying attention; he was just staring at the floor. He started getting nervous, his body twitching, and Daichi seemed to notice his discomfort. “Okay, well, this has been informative. Let’s all try to be sensitive to Hinata’s tics from here on out. If you have any more questions, you can ask Shouyou after practice. We’ll give him a break for now,” he ordered before demanding that everyone take a couple laps around the gym.

Suga chased after Shouyou and wrapped an arm around his shoulder. “Hey, that was great! I think it’s awesome that the team knows now, it’ll make things so much easier for you,” he said encouragingly before racing away.

Nishinoya caught up with him two seconds later, bumping their shoulders together. “Hey, I’m probably the dumbest person on the team, but I’m here if you need anything, okay? Even if it’s just to get some attention off of you, I’ve got your back,” he said with a wink.

“Hinata!” Tanaka screamed, jumping on the other boy’s back for a half second. Nishinoya laughed as Shouyou almost fell flat on his face. Tanaka was much bigger than him, and having anyone so large jump on someone so small easily resulted in a wipeout.

“Ah, what?!”

“Nothing, you’re just the cutest little kouhai in the world, I’m so happy to have you on the team,” Tanaka gushed. It was like he was talking about Kiyoko-san. Hinata stumbled again as Tanaka smacked him on the back and ran in front of him, his longer legs carrying him away.

Shouyou gritted his teeth and sprinted ahead of everyone, happy to have all of the encouragement from his teammates. It put some pep in his step for sure. Even as he pushed his body to the absolute limit to run ahead of everyone, a massive smile lit up his face.

Now if Kageyama stopped ignoring him, everything would be perfect.

Kageyama didn’t stop ignoring him.

Shouyou slinked into the classroom, trying to avoid Kageyama’s eyes. They hadn’t spoken in three days, and the longer they went without talking, the more and more awkward Shouyou felt. He had no idea how he was suppose to muddle through practice again with Kageyama completely ignoring him.

Suga had stepped up and had started tossing to Shouyou, while Kageyama busied himself with glowering and ignoring the team’s smallest spiker. But it wasn’t the same. Shouyou felt weirdly empty at practice, and he felt weirdly empty sitting here in class with Kageyama keeping his eyes trained on the board and his notebook.

Shouyou got his books out of his bag. He moved to grab a pen, but before he could, his arms started flapping violently at his sides, and he stood up in his seat to hop a couple times. Their teacher didn’t call attention to him. She was fortunately very lenient when it came to Shouyou’s tics, even if she didn’t understand how much his Tourette’s affected his school work.

However, his classmates loved calling attention to him.

The two boys sitting behind him started snickering, and the back of Shouyou’s neck heated up. He had a feeling he knew exactly why those two were laughing.

“Ah!” he yelled involuntarily. Getting made fun of always made Shouyou anxious. “Aaaaah!”

The laughing behind him grew louder, and Shouyou felt his blush creep further across his cheeks. His facial tics started going absolutely crazy as he struggled to keep calm. This was so stressful. This was so stressful, it was so stressful, Shouyou was so stressed, he was so str-

Kageyama’s chair squeaked as he stood up.

“Stop laughing right now,” Kageyama growled. He hadn’t turned around, so Shouyou couldn’t see his face, but he could see the lines of Kageyama’s shoulders. They were pinched up around his ears he was so tense.

Kageyama’s head whipped around, and even Shouyou kicked back in his seat, terrified. He had thought Kageyama looked mad the morning after he told him about Tourette’s, but apparently, he had no idea how angry Kageyama could be. The other boy’s glare was so intense, that Shouyou actually felt bad for the kids who had been making fun of him. He couldn’t imagine being on the other side of that look.

“You laugh at him one more time, and you’ll never laugh again.” Kageyama’s eyes narrowed even further. “I’ll make sure of that personally.”

The classroom had been silent since Kageyama stood up, but as soon as he finished speaking, all of the students started tittering nervously and whispering behind their hands. Kageyama slammed back down into his seat and scooted in towards his desk, all without looking at Shouyou even once.

Shouyou blinked a couple times, frozen in his seat even as their teacher started class. A tiny smile pulled at the corner of his lips.

Kageyama was nothing if not interesting.

“I just can’t believe you have a friend over,” his mom repeated for maybe the eighteen hundredth time. Shouyou was on the verge of tearing his hair out.

“Mom, isn’t there something else you have to do? What about cooking dinner? I thought you took off work early so you could cook dinner.” Not hang around with me and Kenma without an invitation.

“Dinner is in the oven! I’m making baked tonkatsu, I hope that is okay with you, Kenma,” she said, settling a little further into her spot on the couch. Shouyou sighed. He had been so excited when Kenma offered to make the trip from Tokyo to spend the day together, but his mom hanging around kind of put a damper on things. He loved his mom, and he liked spending time with her, but he hardly got to see Kenma in person, so he was still in the process of trying to make a good impression.

“Tonkatsu sounds fine,” Kenma said passively. He didn’t look away from his DS screen as he spoke to her, too focused on the game he was playing. And too nervous. Kenma had mentioned that a lot of his gameplay was driven by his social anxiety.

Shouyou’s mom arched an eyebrow, realizing that she was unwanted.

“Actually, you know, I should probably get started on the eggplant,” she said, standing up. Shouyou breathed a sigh of relief. “I just can’t believe you have a friend over, Shou-chan!” She pinched his cheek as she left the room, and Shouyou flopped face first on the couch in frustration.

“She’s just excited,” Kenma empathized.

“She’s just embarrassing,” Shouyou replied. He sat up after a moment and scooted closer to Kenma to look at his DS screen. He watched his friend play Pokémon for a few minutes. He didn’t bother to hide his tics, not when Kenma was so focused on his game. Instead, he let his knees jump as much as they want to, and he let his face contort itself into as many scrunched up configurations as humanly possible.

“It’s nice that your mom cares so much about you and your friends,” Kenma spoke up after awhile. “I’m sorry for being so awkward.”

“Don’t be. She’s the awkward one for hanging around so long,” Shouyou pointed out.

“Yeah, well… I should have at least looked up from my DS at her. I also shouldn’t be playing on it when I came all this way just to see you, but…”

“Hey, don’t worry about it,” Shouyou replied easily, brushing off the apology. “I know what it’s like to struggle to talk to other people sometimes. Although, my struggling involves a lot more yelling and stammering,” he admitted with a laugh. Kenma coughed.

“That’s because you’re stupid.

“No, it’s cause I’m nervous. Like you.”

Kenma looked up at him with a wrinkled nose. “I don’t think anyone could possibly be as nervous as me,” he replied. His knuckles turned white around his DS, and Shouyou tilted his head to look at him inquiringly. Kenma looked away quickly. “It’s a bigger deal than I think you understand.”

“No, I really do get it,” Shouyou replied. “Being loud and being confident are two different things.”

Kenma looked at him appraisingly. “Do you wanna play something together?” he asked, changing the subject. “Because I feel like playing Call of Duty or something. Something multiplayer. Something together. Does that sound okay?”

Shouyou smiled, knowing full well that Kenma didn’t often volunteer to do things with other people. It was exciting that Kenma had come over at all; it showed a surprising amount of trust on Kenma’s part. Shouyou’s tics heightened in intensity the more enthusiastic he became about his and Kenma’s strengthening friendship. He hummed happily. “Sounds great!”

Kageyama had stood up for him at school, but he still hadn’t talked to him at practice. The whole team had noticed the tension between them. After all, normally every toss Kageyama made went to Shouyou, and now he blatantly refused to play on the same side of the net as the energetic redhead.

“Dude, what happened with you guys?” Nishinoya asked later, when they were both stretching. “I miss receiving your quicks, they’re great practice.”

“… It’s complicated,” Shouyou replied, scrunching his nose.

Noya looked at him quizzically before bending over to stretch out his hamstrings. “Things between you guys have always been complicated, though,” he pointed out, and Shouyou made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat. He didn’t need Nishinoya to remind him of how crazy it was to deal with Kageyama on a daily basis.

“I dunno what to tell you. He keeps going back and forth between being a total jerk and a total hero. I don’t know what his problem is,” Shouyou groaned, following the libero’s lead and bending over. He straddled his feet and tried to pull his chest to his left thigh, his nose bumping his kneecap.

“I don’t know how to deal with that kind of crap, either. That’s why I get along so well with Asahi and Tanaka. There’s no surprises with those two: Asahi is always a hero, and Tanaka is always a jerk.”

“Hey!” Tanaka yelled from the other side of the gym. “I can hear you, you know!”

“Good!” Noya replied, sticking his tongue out at the other boy.

Shouyou laughed, but his heart felt heavy. He missed Kageyama. Whether he actually was missing the other boy’s personality and presence or just his tosses was yet to be determined, but either way, Shouyou was feeling a definite void in his life. He looked over at the first year setter and was surprised to find the other boy looking back at him. He waved between his legs, still doubled over as he stretched.

Kageyama looked away with a wrinkled nose, and Shouyou sighed. He didn’t know how they were ever going to get over this awkward slump.

“Alright, enough of this.” Daichi demanded when Hinata missed another set from Suga. He was getting better at hitting tosses that weren’t from Kageyama, but that didn’t mean practice hadn’t been unbearably frustrating for Shouyou lately. He missed the feeling of a volleyball hitting against his palm properly. He’d been hitting dinks consistently for the past few days, and not on purpose. “Kageyama, partner up with Shouyou again. Whatever this is, you’re both being idiots about it.”

Daichi roughly shoved Kageyama towards Shouyou and forced a volleyball into his hands. He left them standing awkwardly next to each other, Kageyama looking off to the side like he always did and Shouyou kicking awkwardly at the ground.

“So do we have to apologize to each other or something?” Kageyama asked.

Shouyou’s head whipped up and he blinked dumbly at him. “Apologize to each other?” he asked, incredulously. “Last time I checked, you’re the one who made fun of my brain problem.”

“That you didn’t tell me about!” Kageyama exclaimed, squeezing the volleyball between his hands.

“Because it would have been weird!” Shouyou replied. He was too tired to deal with this conversation. This was the last afternoon practice of the week. He had come prepared to give it his all, but it was going to take the last of his energy. He didn’t have any to spare to fight with Kageyama like this.

“No, it wouldn’t have been! We’re supposed to be partners!”

Shouyou’s head jerked and then tilted up at Kageyama. “Partners?”

“In volleyball,” Kageyama muttered, as if it was supposed to be obvious. Shouyou bit his lip when he realized that it probably was. “Listen. You… You trust me enough to close your eyes when you spike-“

“You tell me not to do that,” Shouyou interrupted.

“Did I not just say listen?” Kageyama prickled. He took a deep breath. “You trust me enough to close your eyes when you spike, you should trust me enough to tell me about… about this kind of thing. About any kind of thing,” he explained. Shouyou frowned, guilt sweeping over him.

“Okay. You’re right,” he agreed. If there was one thing Shouyou knew, it was when he was beaten. “I should have told you. I guess… At first it was awkward because I didn’t like you and we weren’t friends, and then I just sort of… waited too long and it got more awkward, and also I thought you wouldn’t care? I didn’t think anyone would care, really, about my tics, so I didn’t bother talking about it,” he explained.

“Of course I care.”

Shouyou winced. “You do?”

“Of course I do. It effects how you play volleyball. You still have a bruise from that time your head shaking got you hit in the face with a serve from an ace!” Kageyama replied, crossing his arms. “Stop making such a stupid face.”

Shouyou quit cringing and straightened up. “Don’t tell me what to do! Anyways, you owe me an apology, too, you big jerk! You know exactly why I scrunch my nose the way I do, and you made fun of me anyway! That was mean.”

“84 and 82.”

“What?”

Kageyama pressed his lips together. “The score was 83 to 82, but you… you win this one. 84 and 82,” he said, referring to their ongoing point system for who won the most of their stupid competitions, like racing from class to practice or eating the fastest at lunch.

A smile spread across Shouyou’s face. “Is this you’re way of apologizing? Letting me win without having to actually beat you at anything?” Kageyama didn’t say anything, just fidgeted uncomfortably. Shouyou’s smile only got wider. “You’re lucky I’m so forgiving, Kageyama, because I will accept that miserable attempt at an apology.”

“Shut up and leave me alone.”

Shouyou smirked mischievously. “Never.”

“I mean, I kind of get why he was mad,” Kenma mused, laying upside down on Shouyou’s bed. For a guy absolutely kicking his but at Call of Duty, he looked ridiculously casual. “I’d be mad, too, if my best friend didn’t tell me about his weird brain disorder.”

“No, you wouldn’t. I just told you, and you weren’t mad at all,” Shouyou replied, throwing his controller to the side. He wasn’t a quitter by any means, but it was pointless trying to beat Kenma at video games. He would maintain more dignity by giving up than he would by playing through to the end of the game.

Kenma’s eyes stayed glued to the screen. “But I’m different. I’m not face to face with your tics day in and day out, wondering what they are. And anyways, we’re hardly best friends.”

Shouyou clutched at his heart and made a wounded noise. “Kenma, that’s so mean! We’re great friends!”

“Yeah, but I have Kuroo. And you have Kageyama,” Kenma pointed out, pausing the video game to look straight at Shouyou. He waited to press play until Shouyou begrudgingly picked up his controller again.

“That’s the most depressing thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“What? That you have Kageyama?” Kenma asked, already distracted from the conversation. Shouyou had noticed that the second you put anything with a screen in front of Kenma was the second that you lost his attention.

“Yes. Because I definitely don’t have Kageyama. At least not as a best friend. If I have him at all, it’s in the way that dogs have tics and people in third world countries have tapeworms,” he explained, crinkling his nose with distaste. He hated how this fight had made everyone start portraying his and Kageyama’s relationship as something more than it was. Everyone was so insistent that Shouyou and Kageyama were closer than they were, and it was starting to make Shouyou wonder if he was missing something.

“You shouldn’t compare your ~best friend~ to different kinds of parasites, Hinata.”

Shouyou threw his pillow square at Kenma’s face. “He’s not my best friend!” he exclaimed, his face heating up. “Why does everyone keep acting like we’re so close?”

“I mean…” Kenma sat up, his cheeks flushed from being upside down, “Maybe I could see why you don’t feel super close to Kageyama, even if you’re constantly hanging out with him, but Kageyama obviously really cares about you.”

Shouyou crinkled his nose a few times, half because of his Tourette’s and half because of his confusion. He shook his head. He blinked his eyes. His tics were so repetitive and monotonous, he almost hoped for a new one just to shake things up a little (almost being the operative word, Shouyou would actually rather die than have this Tourette’s somehow become even worse). “Why would you even assume that? I feel like half of my texts to you are to tell you about Kageyama’s latest insult or our most recent screaming match.”

Kenma frowned, deep in thought. “Well, like… I suppose I don’t go to your school, so I wouldn’t actually know, but… You don’t really see Kageyama ever talking to anyone else, do you?” Kenma asked.

“No, but what-“

“And no one really likes him, either.”

“The team likes him!” Shouyou squawked indignantly.

Kenma raised his hands in surrender. “Dude, I’m not saying Karasuno isn’t a close-knit team or whatever, but you can’t tell me that all the other guys like Kageyama the same way they like you.” Shouyou looked at Kenma and bit his bottom lip, his eyes giving away his insecurity. He wasn’t sure he believed that his teammates liked him all that much. “Oi. I won’t be having that. You know they like you, Hinata,” Kenma said, reading him like a book.

Shouyou shrugged.

Kenma looked exasperated, and he let out a long sigh. “Look. I can’t say I don’t know how you feel. I’m… very socially anxious, as you know. But you have to ignore your insecurity about this kind of stuff and look at the facts. You tell me all the time about how Daichi and that third-year setter always have your back. And Nishinoya seems to like you an awful lot; you’ve always got funny stories about him. And Kageyama, despite how terrible he is at expressing himself, clearly values you as a friend, considering how much time he spends with you. Obviously, you’re likable, Hinata. They all like you; everyone likes you.”

“The facts are that no one but Kageyama talks to me outside of volleyball practice,” Shouyou grumbled, folding his arms over his chest with a pout.

Kenma tilted his head at him. “Well, yeah. Kageyama’s the only one in your class, and all of your other waking time is at volleyball. When else are they supposed to talk to you?”

Shouyou hated when Kenma was right. He didn’t know why he even bothered arguing in the first place, Kenma clearly knew better than he did, but he wasn’t ready to give up on his anxiety just yet. It had become weirdly comfortable to assume that everyone hated him, even when it was so obvious that all of his teammates cared.

He didn’t say anything, so Kenma took the initiative to start the conversation back up. “You know, I kind of hate you for this. I’m not used to saying so many words in a row.”

“I kind of hate you for this, too. I don’t want to have to deal with not actually being an awful person,” Shouyou whined, pulling a loose blanket over his head and humming under his breath. His knees started jumping on the mattress. This whole conversation was only serving to make him more and more anxious, and now his tics were ramping up in intensity.

Shouyou hated how obvious his emotions were.

“Get used to it,” Kenma glared. Shouyou stuck his tongue out at him. “Listen, social anxiety sucks, but don’t let it trick you. Just because you’re scared people will hate you, it doesn’t mean they actually will.”

Shouyou interrupted his rendition of “Peanut Butter Jelly” by Galantis with a whine. “Who made you so smart?”

“Kuroo.”

“So he really is your best friend?” Shouyou asked, freeing himself of his blanket cocoon. He kept humming in spite of desperately wanting to hear the answer. Tourette’s got in the way of everything.

“Yeah,” Kenma shrugged. His eyes flickered off of the TV screen and onto Shouyou for a second. A ghost of a smile pulled at the other boy’s lips; it was the largest display of emotion Shouyou had seen from him yet today. “But you’re a close second.”

Focus, Shouyou, you can do this.

Shouyou blinked hard at his quiz paper. He glanced up at the clock. Shoot. He needed more time. He still had four math questions to finish and the testing period would be over in about sixty seconds. Half of the students around him had been sitting bored in their seats or checking over their work for the past ten minutes. Shouyou was the only one still working.

While his teachers were fully understanding of his tics and how he couldn’t help from disrupting the classroom environment, they did not understand how difficult it was for him to be tested on the material they covered in class. He couldn’t read fast enough.

Hours of studying, all down the garbage can, simply because he couldn’t read or write fast enough to fill out the questions he knew the answers to.

A timer went off in the front of the room, and their teacher immediately started to collect their quizzes. His unfinished test was soon ripped from his hands. Shouyou’s eyes locked with Kageyama’s as their teacher moved on to the desk behind him. Kageyama stood up.

“Excuse me, Sensei, but he’s not finished.”

Shouyou turned bright pink; he was so embarrassed. “What? Kageyama! Sit down!” he squeaked, talking through his teeth as if that would somehow stop their classmates from overhearing. This was humiliating, why would Kageyama announce to the entire room that he was too stupid to finish a simple math quiz?

Kageyama looked at him like he was crazy. Like somehow Shouyou was the one who didn’t make any sense right now. Like Shouyou was the one telling their teacher they were doing their job wrong. “No. You’re not finished. And you deserve more time with your reading and writing impairments and your facial tics.”

“Kageyama. What. The. Hell.”

“Language,” their teacher chastised. She looked at Shouyou thoughtfully. “Do you need more time on your quiz?”

Shouyou instantly looked down at his toes. This conversation was absolutely mortifying. The entire classroom was silent, waiting to be dismissed with nothing better to do than watch Shouyou turn redder and redder. “… Yes,” he answered. His whole body was torn between being tense and being in constant motion. He’d never felt so frayed between his anxious behaviors.

“If you need further accommodations for quizzes, then you should talk to me before the exam, Hinata-san,” their teacher said frowning. Shouyou scratched at the back of his neck. He didn’t think that talking would do anything, especially considering that he had never properly finished a test for this teacher. He would have thought she would have noticed and asked him what was wrong, but instead she kept failing him. How was Shouyou supposed to know what the expectations were?

He didn’t want to argue, so he kept quiet, but Kageyama spoke up. “Frankly, you should have known he needed further accommodations from the test scores you’ve been giving him.”

Honestly, if God struck him down with a lightning bolt right now, Shouyou would consider it a favor.

“We’ll talk about this at another time,” their teacher decided, effectively ending the conversation and returning to picking up papers. Shouyou groaned and faceplanted on his desk. He was pretty sure Kageyama was trying to help, but did he have to be so humiliating?

Hinata was exceptionally twitchy today.

Or, actually, that wasn’t true.

It had become so normal for Shouyou to tic this much that it had become his regular state. What had used to be his usual amount of ticking was now an easy day for him. It was starting to get scary, how his Tourette’s only seemed to be getting worse and worse as the days went by. It was supposed to go away in his late teens or early twenties, and Shouyou was over halfway there, now. He would have thought his Tourette’s would be winding down, not gearing up.

“Ugh, for the love of-“ Shouyou cut off a swear as he started hopping before he had to take his turn to serve. Despite how severe his Tourette’s was becoming, it hardly ever got in the way of volleyball, especially when it came to scrimmages. But they had just taken a water break, so Shouyou’s head wasn’t distracted by the game yet. Instead, it was focused on his tics.

And now he couldn’t stop hopping in place long enough to serve.

Just when he was starting to feel anxious about all of his teammates eyes on him, Nishinoya called out from the other side of the court. “Hey, kill it with a jump serve this time, Hinata!” he was teasing, but it was helping to lighten some of the tension Shouyou was feeling. He laughed awkwardly

Tanaka –being Tanaka- jumped on board to try to get another laugh out of Shouyou. “Yeah, Hinata! You’ve got hops, man! Hops like a bunny!”

“Oi!”

Both Nishinoya and Tanaka’s smile dropped when they looked through the net at Kageyama. He was standing in front of the spike line, so Shouyou couldn’t see his expression; he could only imagine the look on his face. It was probably another one of his more glowering, angry expressions. Kageyama had been overusing his terrifying glare, lately, and Shouyou felt bad for being the reason behind most of Kageyama’s fury.

“Shut up! You don’t know anything about Hinata’s jumping other than what you see on the court, and that’s not even half of it!” Once again, Kageyama’s shoulders were drawn up around his ears. Shouyou pictured Kageyama angrily stomping on ants with his shoulders tensed like this, and he hid a snicker behind his hand.

“Hey, idiot,” he called, making Kageyama turn around. “When it’s Nishinoya and Tanaka, it’s okay.”

“It’s never-“

“When it’s Nishinoya and Tanaka,” Shouyou repeated, cutting the setter off, “it’s okay.” They could both take a teasing tone when they brought up Shouyou’s tics, but Noya and Tanaka only ever made comments when Shouyou was on the verge of a breakdown. They did it to ease the tension and lighten things up. Honestly, being told he hopped like a bunny had felt like a breath of fresh air. At least his teammates were then more focused on Tanaka’s stupid comment then Hinata’s uncontrollable tics.

Kageyama scoffed and looked down on his feet. Shouyou managed to get his own feet still on the ground after he took a deep breath.

“Here we go,” he said, before slamming a serve to the other side of the net.

“Hey, you know what I just noticed?” Shouyou said, sitting up on his futon. Kouji and Izumi looked over at him with question marks written all over their faces. “Your kitten poster is gone, Kouji! Did you take it down?”

Izumi snickered. “He decided it wasn’t manly,” he laughed, and Kouji made an indignant noise.

“Well, it wasn’t! Boys in high school don’t have baby cat pictures on their walls!”

“He still has it rolled up underneath his dresser,” Izumi said conspiringly. Shouyou’s eyes widened. Before Kouji could stop him, he dove for the space between Izumi’s drawers and the floor. “See, I wasn’t lying,” Izumi said as Shouyou unrolled a particularly adorable poster of a kitten showing it’s paws to the camera.

“Why’d you even buy this in the first place?” Shouyou asked. Kouji ripped the poster from his hands.

“None of your business! And anyways, I took it down, no one is allowed to make fun of me for it anymore,” he demanded, rolling it back up and stuffing it back under the dresser. Shouyou flopped back on his futon.

It had been forever since he had seen Kouji and Izumi. They had decided to have a sleepover to catch up, and even though it was way past Shouyou’s bedtime and he would be absolutely exhausted tomorrow, he was having a hard time going to sleep. He wanted to keep talking to his friends.

The darkened bedroom was quiet for a moment, before Shouyou spoke again. “He’s just so confusing.”

Both Izumi and Kouji groaned. “Ugh, Shou-chan, you’ve been talking about Kageyama all night,” Izumi whined. Normally, Izumi was incredibly patient, but Shouyou had apparently worn his tolerance down to the breaking point.

Shouyou bit his bottom lip, staring at the ceiling of Kouji’s bedroom. “But like… I don’t get why he spends half his time yelling at me, and half his time yelling at other people for me.”

Izumi rolled over on his side, his face turned serious. “Has it ever occurred to you that Kageyama might like you?”

“Like me as in not-hate me? Or like me as in-“

“Dude.”

Shouyou turned bright pink, panic making his heart beat uncomfortably hard in his chest. “Well, obviously not, then!” he exclaimed. “That doesn’t even make sense! Why would you think he- oh my gosh.”

“It does make sense, doesn’t it?” Izumi smirked, sitting up on one elbow. Shouyou covered his face with both hands.

“I mean, sort of? Like, the way he acts kind of reminds me of how Kouji used to pull Kohaku’s pigtails in elementary school and then bring her seashells to say sorry-“

“Shou-chan, sometimes you really suck. Don’t bring that up.”

“-but I dunno,” Shouyou mused, refusing to let Kouji interrupt him. “I feel like there’s no way Kageyama could like me, you know? He’s too spiteful and, like… emotionally stunted,” he said, chewing on his bottom lip. “Also, like… Why would he like me, you know? I’m weird, and nervous, and, like, twitchy.”

Izumi looked at him with sad eyes. “Shouyou…”

“He’d like you because you’re fucking likable, Shou-chan. What the hell?” Kouji demanded, punching his mattress. Shouyou sat up when his tics became too unmanageable to keep lying down through.

“But not likable like that! I have Tourette’s!”

“So? That doesn’t make you undatable. If anything, it adds to your character and makes you more datable.”

Shouyou crossed his arms, his head jerking to the side over and over. “Well, that’s an overly romanticized way of looking at it,” he complained. He sniffed, curling inwards a little bit. “Look, you don’t get it. There’s no way that Kageyama could like me: the most glaringly obvious reason being that I have Tourette’s. But also, I’m pretty sure Kageyama loves volleyball to the exclusion of everything else, and I have a ways to go before I’m anywhere near his skill level. He’s probably just torn between hating me as his rival and liking me as a teammate.”

“I still think you’re selling yourself short,” Kouji grumbled.

“I’m with Kouji on this one,” Izumi agreed, and Shouyou made a whining noise.

“What? Izumi, you’re supposed to be the reasonable one!” he exclaimed, his knees hopping underneath his blanket. He was feeling unreasonably antsy around his friends. He should have stopped talking the second the lights went out. Forget about missing his friends, they were annoying.

“I dunno, Shouyou. You’re more self-deprecating than you realize. Sometimes you’re all bravado, but other times you’re as nervous as can be,” Izumi said gently, sitting up to grab Shouyou’s arm and force him to lie back. He smiled at him sympathetically. “Like now. You seem nervous now.”

Shouyou just sighed.

“I think it’s time for bed, is the problem,” Kouji piped up from his bed. He rolled over to face the wall. “Goodnight, everybody. I’m going to sleep.”

“Can you sleep, Shouyou?” Izumi asked, his eyebrows furrowed together in concern.

Shouyou blinked his eyes closed for a couple seconds and wrinkled his nose. “Yeah… yeah, I can sleep. You wouldn’t think it, but ticking can take a lot out of you,” he said. He didn’t have a lot of people to talk to about his Tourette’s, but Izumi and Kouji were two people he felt like he could be open about it with.

“Okay. Well, then, goodnight everybody!” Izumi said, even though Kouji had already started snoring and probably didn’t hear him. Shouyou laughed quietly to himself at how quick his friend could fall asleep.

“Goodnight.”

Shouyou tried not to think about Kageyama liking him as anything more than a friend. He tried not to think about how Kageyama’s eyes are always glued on him or about how Kageyama will stay after practice with him for hours to work on whatever Shouyou needed. He tried not to think about all their lunches together, or how much time they spent together, or how much they had been through together.

But the more he tried not to think about it, the more he thought about it. And the more he thought about it, the more anxious he became, until his tics were nonstop and every three seconds, a squeaking noise emitted from the more nasal part of his vocal box.

“Can you stop that? You sound like a squealing pig,” Tsukki complained.

Shouyou’s head snapped up at the same time Kageyama’s did.

“Ah, I can’t really stop it, no.”

“But it’s annoying.”

Tsukki didn’t look any different than usual; he was as smug and as cocky looking as ever. However, he was clearly in some kind of mood because he didn’t usually single out Shouyou like this. Maybe he had forgotten his lunch, or –more likely- maybe it had something to do with Yamaguchi being home sick.

“I’m sorry?”

“You’re annoying.”

“No, Tsukishima, you’re annoying,” Kageyama piped up, inserting himself between Hinata and Tsukki. Shouyou’s breath hitched as Kageyama stood slightly in front of him, his chest brushing up against the setter’s shoulder every time he took a breath. Kageyama’s shoulders were drawn up again. This wasn’t going to be good.

“Last time I checked, I wasn’t talking to you,” Tsukishima replied, looking down his nose at Kageyama. “Actually, last time I checked, no one was talking to you. Ever.”

Kageyama bristled. There was a quiver in his muscles that wasn’t there before, and Shouyou watched as his whole body tensed up while his hands turned into fists. “It doesn’t matter if you were talking to me or not,” he said through clenched teeth, trying not to get too angry. Kageyama had been threatened to be kicked out of the club the last time he fought with another first-year (AKA: Hinata), and Nishinoya had been suspended for yelling at Asahi. Fighting with your teammates was a bad idea, and Shouyou had a feeling that was why Kageyama wasn’t yelling at Tsukishima the same way he yelled at the kids in their class. “What matters is that you’re asking him to stop a tic when he literally told you –he passed out cards and everything- about how he can’t.”

“If I recall correctly, the card also said something about his behavior being bizarre and challenging,” Tsukishima pointed out, a smirk curling up one side of his face.

Shouyou scratched at the back of his neck. Maybe he wasn’t very confident or perceptive, but he could see what was happening here. Tsukki wasn’t trying to insult him; he was just trying to pick a fight, like he always did when he didn’t have Yamaguchi to help placate him.

And if there was any one specific thing that was guaranteed to make Kageyama mad, it was making fun of Shouyou.

“Stop right there,” Kageyama said as a warning, his voice wavering.

Tsukishima’s smirk only grew wider. “Why? So dumbass Hinata,who’s too stupid to control his own body-“ Kageyama’s fists tightened, “-won’t freak out on us? What’s it matter to you? Do you have a crush, Kageya-“

“Shut up!” Kageyama exclaimed, reaching up to shove Tsukishima’s chest back. The taller boy stumbled backwards and Kageyama pressed up against him, aggressively getting into the other boy’s space. ‘You don’t get to say things like that about him! You don’t get to say anything about him, you big stupid-“

“Oi! Kageyama!” Daichi called out, interrupting the first-year’s insult. Shouyou stood there traumatized. He couldn’t believe Kageyama just pushed Tsukishima like that, and right in front of the captain, no less. “What did I just see?”

Kageyama didn’t reply to Daichi. He didn’t even look at him. Instead his eyes stayed glued on Tuskishima, the two in the middle of an intense staring match.

“Hey, I’m talking to you!” Daichi exclaimed, demanding attention, but Kageyama didn’t seem to have any to give. He glared at Tsukki for a second longer before scoffing and walking away, but not without first heavily ramming his shoulder into Tsukishima’s.

“Say something like that again, and nothing will stop me from hurting you,” he threatened like a promise. Kageyama stormed out of the room and slammed the door closed. He left nothing but tension behind him as Tsukki fixed his glasses and Shouyou stood there frozen.

This over-protective thing was starting to get ridiculous.

Chapter Text

Shouyou’s head whipped to the side so quickly, his neck cracked.

“Woah, there. You okay?” Suga asked, laughing good-naturedly. Across the gym, Shouyou could see Kageyama’s head whip equally quickly in their direction, his eyes narrowing on Suga. Shouyou sighed. Suga followed his line of sight and made a knowing noise by his side. “Ah, I see.”

“He’s… suffocating. More so than usual,” Shouyou explained, casually bouncing a ball up and down on his forearms. He had to practice receiving, even while he was supposed to be cleaning up.

Suga snatched the volleyball out of midair, resting it on his hip and flashing Shouyou a victorious smile. “He’s just worried about you, yeah? I think he’ll calm down soon, especially if you try talking to him,” Suga said. He handed Shouyou a mop.

“Kageyama doesn’t do calm,” Shouyou replied, crinkling his nose a few times. “He just does screaming and yelling.” Although to be fair to Suga, Kageyama wasn’t usually this bad. Normally, he only raised his voice when Shouyou was doing something dangerous or stupid. It came from a place of frustration, not anger. But now? Now, Kageyama was furiously shouting at everyone who said anything that could be construed as an insult about his Tourette’s.

Kageyama abandoned his cleaning duties to stomp over to Suga when the upperclassman didn’t drop his smile. “Were you just laughing at Hinata?”

Case and point.

Shouyou groaned. “No, baka, sometimes people just laugh. You know, when things are funny? Like, most of the time, actually. Most of the time, people only laugh because things are funny, not because they’re hateful. Especially not Suga,” he explained, exasperated.

Kageyama, for his part, only arched an eyebrow. His jaw was still set tight, and he spoke through clenched teeth. “As long as you’re okay,” he decided, before leaving to carry the net into the equipment room. Shouyou felt like screaming.

“Where does he even get off talking to upperclassmen like that? He used to yell me all the time for not being formal enough!” Shouyou yelped. He was so frustrated. Kagyeama had been exhausting lately. He was always lurking, ready to pounce on the next person who talked to Shouyou without checking to see how he felt. It had been nice in class when he yelled at the idiots laughing behind him, but there was no reason to criticize their teachers or teammates.

“Both of you have never been great at showing respect. At least not in the conventional way,” Suga pointed out. He practiced a couple tosses up in the air while Shouyou started mopping sweat off the floor. There were a couple beats of silence before Suga spoke again. “… You know, Daichi used to be a little like Kageyama is being now.”

Shouyou stopped moving and leaned on the mop. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“Well- Oh, whoops,” Suga winced as he lost control of the ball. He reached out to receive it before going back to making tosses directly above his head. “Daichi was really bold as a first year. At least, he was more confident than Asahi or I. And I think some of the second-years saw that we were too nervous to say no or speak up for ourselves, so they used to… abuse their authority, I guess you could say.”

Shouyou’s eyes had been bouncing up and down to follow the volleyball Suga was playing with, but they locked on the other boy’s face at the word ‘abuse.’ “Did they beat you up?” he asked, terrified. Suga was such a great person. He was so helpful and kind. It was difficult to imagine anyone hurting him.

“No, no… Nothing like that. But they used to make us take their cleaning days, and they would make us treat them to ice cream after practice. It was stupid little stuff, and we could have said no, but we didn’t know how,” he explained, and Shouyou nodded. Sometimes he forgot how lucky he was to have such kind upperclassmen on his team. “But Daichi did. So he would say no for us, which was great at first, but then he started saying no too often.”

“How so?” Shouyou asked, quickly mopping again when Daichi walked back into the gym. He was dressed back in his uniform, having gone to the clubroom to change while Suga stayed back to watch over the first years.

A soft smile merged on Suga’s lips as he looked to Daichi. “Whenever anyone asked me for favors, even little ones, he’d tell them no for me. But I like doing things for my friends, so eventually I had to sit him down and tell him that.”

Shouyou tried to picture sitting Kageyama down and having a serious conversation with him like that. He couldn’t picture it going well, and his face screwed up with effort. “Did it go okay?” he asked, uncertain.

Suga nodded. “Yep! We’d been best friends since the beginning of the year, so he knew I wasn’t trying to criticize him, or lie to him, or anything.” Suga caught the ball in both hands. A wicked grin swept over his usually angelic features. “It also probably helped that I said I liked doing him favors especially.”

Shouyou didn’t even want to ask.

“Hey, how are things going over here?” Daichi questioned, walking up with his hands in his pockets.

“Fine,” Shouyou replied, meeting Daichi’s eyes for a second before focusing on the task at hand. His tics were worse than usual with the added stress Kageyama was mounting on his shoulders. (Seriously, it seemed like every day, Kageyama was making him deal with another problem.) Having so many motor tics made it hard to do monotonous, menial tasks like mopping. He had to put all of his effort into it.

Suga bumped shoulders with Daichi. “It’s hard to be a first year, isn’t it?” he mused, talking solely to their captain. Shouyou scoffed as he listened in, fully agreeing. “Let’s never do it again.”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Daichi agreed, walking away to grab a mop and help Shouyou finish the gym. Once again, he was struck by just how nice his upperclassmen were. They had really taken him on as their responsibility, and Shouyou was forever grateful.

Shouyou’s smile took up his entire face as he finished his sprints before Kageyama. “Ha! That’s 93 to 92,” he boasted, bending over to tighten one of his loosened shoelaces. Kageyama finished his run a second later, falling to his knees.

“I hate that you’re winning,” he groaned, panting so hard that Shouyou thought he might choke.

“Next time, just give me a proper apology instead of giving me an extra point,” Shouyou replied airily. He didn’t really mean anything by it; he genuinely had accepted Kageyama’s crappy apology for making fun of his tics. However, the expression Kageyama was wearing was too serious for the teasing way Shouyou meant it.

“Damn, Hinata, your legs are so short, but you run so fast,” Tanaka complained, interrupting the strange moment between them. He crossed the makeshift finish line third. “You know, I used to be the fastest on the team before you guys got here.”

“The key word here is used,” Nishinoya teased, ending his sprint by jumping on Tanaka’s back and sending them both toppling to the ground. On the way down, Tanaka’s shoulder hit Shouyou’s waist, sending him flying into Kageyama, and they all ended up in a tangled mess on the lawn.

Daichi laughed as he finished his own set of sprints. “You guys are all idiots,” he joked amiably. He extended a hand to help them each off the ground, first-years first and second-years second.

Shouyou looked up at Kageyama and another smile lit up his face. “You have grass in your hair,” he laughed, trying to hide his grin behind his hand. He reached up to ruffle his fingers through Kageyama’s bangs, shaking out leaves and dirt.

“You’re a freak,” Kageyama replied. Honestly, sometimes Shouyou wondered if Kageyama thought the way he spoke to people was socially acceptable or not; it was sometimes impossible to tell if he was an obtuse jerk or a purposeful jerk.

“You’re exhausting,” Shouyou replied, sticking out his tongue.

There was a beat of silence between them, and Shouyou debated bringing up how weirdly possessive Kageyama had been lately. They needed to talk about it, but Shouyou didn’t want to do it when Kageyama was already in a bad mood. Telling off a cranky Kageyama was never a good idea.

However, Kageyama was literally always cranky. There was no good time to talk to him, at least not without the chance of it all blowing up in his face. Shouyou wanted this to go smoothly.

It didn’t help that the constant anxiety brewing in Shouyou’s chest made him too nervous to do anything, much less hold difficult conversations. He didn’t know why, but lately, he could hardly breathe. He didn’t have any tests, and preliminaries only made him excited, not scared. He didn’t know why he felt so nervous.

“You’re obnoxious,” Kageyama said a few moments too late, pulling Shouyou out of his anxious haze. He took one look at the other boy’s face and snorted. Sometimes, it was impossible not to laugh at Kageyama’s stupid face.

He plucked one last, stubborn piece of grass from Kageyama’s hair. He was still laughing a bit as he spoke. “You know, you can be pretty cute sometimes,” he commented, before running off to get in line for a second set of sprints. Kageyama could figure out what he meant on his own time.

“You’re a goofball!”

“No, I’m a walrus,” Shouyou replied, clapping his hands together and barking in a decidedly walrus-y way. He currently had chopsticks crammed into the space between his upper lip and his teeth, like skinny tusks. Natsu giggled and reached up on her tiptoes to steal a chopstick from her brother’s mouth and stuff it into her own.

“Me, too! Me, too!” she demanded, clapping her hands just like Shouyou had. He smiled and scooped her up, a chopstick still dangling from his lips.

“Silly goose, you need two tusks to be a walrus,” he chastised teasingly, tickling his little sister’s tummy as he did so. Natsu giggled twice as hard as before, and Shouyou quickly let her off the hook. He gave her his other chopstick as a reward for making it through the ordeal. Natsu put it in her mouth and gave him a giant smile. “There you go, perfect!” he promised.

Shouyou put Natsu back down on her feet and turned back to the stove. He sighed. It was not easy making dinner every week night, but he could hardly ask his mom to do it. She had just as long of a day as he did. He got home earlier usually, so the responsibility fell to him (even if he also had to leave the house earlier for morning practice).

Natsu peered into the pan. “Whatchya making?” she asked, wrinkling her nose.

Shouyou twisted his already tangled hair. “I don’t know,” he admitted. They’d been nearly out of food, so Shouyou had just thrown all their leftover vegetables into a pan for a stir-fry. Smoke sizzled off from the bottom of the wok.

Perfect.

Now he was burning it.

“You know, let’s just…” Shouyou turned of the stove. He picked up the wok carefully with oven mitts and dumped its contents into the trashcan. “There, that’s better. All right, kiddo,” he said, sweeping up his little sister into his arms again. He sat her on the counter and stood between her short little legs. “What do you want to eat?” he asked.

“Spaghetti!”

Shouyou wrinkled his nose. “You always want yohshoku,” he complained, but he reached for the phone to order anyway. He laughed into the phone when Natsu cheered for her favorite toppings. Soon enough, the employee on the other side of the line confirmed their order and Shouyou got off the phone and started spinning Natsu around the kitchen.

“Stop, stop, I’m dizzy!”

“Well, I’m bored,” Shouyou replied, settling her on his hip anyway. His head jerked to the side, bumping into Natsu’s.

“Ouch!”

“Sorry, sorry!” Shouyou apologized, combing back Natsu’s hair with his fingers to make sure he didn’t bruise her. There was a slight red mark, but she otherwise seemed to make out fine.

Natsu reached up to cover the tiny bump with both hands, a frown on her face. “Nii-chan, you are dangerous today,” she pouted. Shouyou couldn’t disagree with her there. He’d been messing up all day. He thought that his anxiety was centered on the drama with Kageyama, but lately he had been just as nervous when he was at home. It resulted in all kinds of mistakes, from burning dinner to head-butting Natsu. He was about to apologize, but Natsu continued talking before he had the chance. “Let’s do something easy, ne? Like a puzzle or Jenga.”

Shouyou nodded easily. A calming puzzle would be great for him right now. Quiet, focused environments were helpful for his Tourette’s when there wasn’t any pressure on him to perform. He was grateful to have a sister who knew what he needed, even though she was so much younger than him. “A puzzle sounds perfect,” he agreed.

He set Natsu down and let her pull him by the hand to her bedroom. She pulled out a Little Twin Stars puzzle from under her bed and poured out the pieces onto the tatami. Shouyou took a seat next to her on the floor and started sorting out edge pieces. He grinned as Natsu immediately started trying to put middle pieces together.

“Nii-chan?”

“Yeah?”

“What’s in the middle of the world? Like under our feet?” Natsu asked, looked up at him for a second. When Shouyou didn’t answer right away, she continued babbling. “Because Maiko’s brother says that some people think the middle of the world is hollow, and that the north pole is really just a big opening to the center.”

Shouyou snorted. “Yeah? What else does he say?” he asked, trying to quell his anxiety and focus on Natsu’s story. It was easy to push everything aside just to think about her.

“He says that some people think that there’s a whole other planet on the inside, just like ours. And some people think that there is a whole other ocean, just on the inside. But Maiko says that if you go to the trouble of believing the world is hollow, then you might as well believe anything you want is inside,” she explained, and Shouyou hummed thoughtfully.

“So what do you think is down there?”

“Oh, a giant squid,” Natsu said nodding, as if it was the most obvious thing in the entire world.

Shouyou laughed behind his hand, trying to be a supportive big brother. He didn’t want to directly laugh in his little sister’s face when she was telling him the deep secrets of the earth’s core. “A giant squid?”

“Yeah. And it controls the weather with it’s brain, and when there are earthquake’s, it’s just the squid’s tummy rumbling,” Natsu explained.

“Naturally,” Shouyou agreed, nodding his head seriously.

“Naturally,” Natsu repeated brightly. A half a second later, two of the pieces she had been trying to match up magically clicked together and her whole face lit up. “Nii-chan, look!”

“I see!” Shouyou replied, trying to appear just as excited. He ruffled her hair proudly. It wasn’t hard to act happy like this, cozy with Natsu on the floor. The calm environment was really helping to relieve some of the tension in his muscles. Tourette’s left him feeling constantly pent up, and it wasn’t often that he was awake and relaxed at the same time.

His head was ducked low as he tried to put together the borders of the puzzle. His knees hopped occasionally, and his eyes blinked every couple breaths, but he was otherwise still. He was so focused, he didn’t notice Natsu standing up and pulling a blanket off of her bed. He only looked up when he felt the quilt drape over his shoulders.

“There!” Natsu exclaimed, looking proud of herself.

Shouyou reached up to pull the blanket a bit further around his shoulders. His eyes were wide as he looked at his smiling younger sister. He was almost shocked by her kindness.

The doorbell rang downstairs and Natsu squealed. “That’s dinner!” she exclaimed, running out of the room. Shouyou could hear her feet pounding through the house. The sound of keys in the front door told him that his mother had just come home, her voice carrying upstairs while she spoke to the deliveryman, but Shouyou didn’t move to greet her. He stayed frozen on the floor for a couple seconds a grin taking over his face.

There was nothing like being at home to make you feel like someone loved you.

“Oi, Hinata,” Tsukki snapped, suddenly appearing before him. Yamaguchi was tucked into his side per usual. Shouyou blinked a couple times and stared up at the blonde’s imposing figure. He crinkled his nose and hopped twice.

“Um… yes?” he asked, squeaking a few times. His tics were flaring up along with his anxiety. His arms had been flapping all day, and he couldn’t stop making noise in class. He was hoping volleyball practice would be a break from the constant involuntary motion, but talking to Tsukki was already winding him up even more. He winced as he started loudly humming “Like a Virgin” by Madonna.

Tsukki arched an eyebrow, and Hinata flushed. “What are you singing?”

“I don’t know,” Hinata replied, cutting himself off. “It’s not really a choice, it just comes out,” he explained. Tsukki made a scoffing noise, and Yamaguchi elbowed him in the ribs. For a second, Tsukki looked positively furious, glaring down at Yamaguchi like he was about to smack him. However, his features softened quickly as he stared at the shorter boy, and the blonde’s shoulders slumped.

“Right, well… I came over to say sorry,” he said, sheepishly scratching the back of his neck.

“So, go on. Do it,” Yamaguchi coached. He was staring up at Tsukki expectantly, like they had already discussed what he should say and do. Shouyou’s tics amped up as he waited for Tsukki to speak, and Yamaguchi clearly took note of Shouyou’s incessant twitching and nose scrunching. “Come on, Tsukki, he’s waiting.”

“I know, I know, I’m sorry, okay?” Tsukki asked. He looked exasperated, but if Shouyou was being honest, he thought he actually saw an apologetic glimmer in the taller boy’s eye. “Now is the part where you forgive me.”

Shouyou winced, mirroring Tsukishima and scratching the back of his neck. “I dunno, man, you were kind of a jerk.” If there was one thing Shouyou prided himself on, it was being completely and one hundred percent honest.

“Look, I was having a bad day, okay? I just-“ Tsukki cut himself off and pushed his glasses up higher on his nose. “Whatever, I don’t have to explain myself to you. I’m sorry, I’ve told you I’m sorry, my work here is done.” And with that, Tsukishima stormed off to the other side of the gym to warm up.

Yamaguchi grimaced. “He really is sorry, I promise. He came over after practice while I was still sick, and he talked about how bad he felt,” the first-year swore, his voice hushed to keep Tsukishima from overhearing. “He just doesn’t do well when he’s alone all day. I think he picks fights for attention.”

Shouyou nodded understandingly, his eyes trained on the blond. “Yeah, Natsu does that,” he replied, flapping his arms and humming a little louder. His nose twitched a couple more times.

“Who is Natsu.”

“My baby sister.”

Yamaguchi laughed behind his hand. “That makes sense. Tsukki can be a bit of a baby sometimes,” he admitted, offering Shouyou a smile. Shouyou grinned shakily back, trying not to let his anxiety show. Yamaguchi didn’t seem to notice his discomfort. “I’m gonna go join him so he doesn’t insult anyone else. Warm up well, we don’t want to lose our decoy!” Yamaguchi said, throwing up a peace sign before running to join Tsukki in the back corner of the gym.

Shouyou breathed out a sigh of relief. Thank goodness that conversation is over. He lowered himself to the floor to stretch out his hamstrings in attempt to relax. However, despite Yamaguchi and Tsukishima having disappeared to the other side of the room, the tightness in Shouyou’s chest didn’t dissipate.

The hard part was over. He should be calming down. But if anything, Shouyou’s shoulders only grew tenser and tenser as he tried to warm up. His throat burned, and the back of his eyes stung. He sniffled a little as he reached for his toes. His head whipped to the side over and over as the scratching feeling in his throat grew to be more and more intense.

Shouyou coughed on snot and tears.

“Hinata? Hinata, holy shit, are you okay?” Tanaka asked. Shouyou looked up as all of his teammates’ heads swiveled to stare at him.

“Um… um…” His nose twitched, and he blinked his eyes a couple times. Was he okay? He was okay a couple seconds ago; he was feeling relieved a couple seconds ago, actually. Nothing bad had happened since Tsukki and Yamaguchi had walked away, and his day had gone okay for the most part. It was just this incessant anxiety that was bringing him down. “I think?”

“Hinata, you’re crying,” Daichi said gently, coming over to kneel by the underclassmen.

Shouyou reached up a shaky hand to feel his cheeks. His fingers came away wet with tears, and for the first time, Shouyou noticed that he was hyperventilating. “Ah, okay,” he replied, suddenly feeling woozy. He reached out to catch the ground beneath him before he fell back.

A strong hand –Daichi’s hand- settled on his back to keep him upright. Shouyou hardly felt it, though. All he was conscious of were the long legs caging him in. His teammates had completely surrounded him. With Shouyou’s eyes at the level of their knees, he felt totally encompassed.

The claustrophobic feeling certainly didn’t make it easier to get any air in, and he choked as he tried to breathe. “Hey, everyone, go back to warming up, your captains can take care of this,” Suga said with a wink, shooing everyone away.

The space around Shouyou cleared, and he could almost see the whole gym again. There was just one thing obstructing his view.

“Kageyama, it’s okay, we’ll take care of him,” Daichi promised, but Kageyama stayed rooted to the spot. He stood right in front of Shouyou, staring at him as he struggled to breathe.

“Kage-“ Shouyou tried, but a swell of panic washed over him and he couldn’t finish the word. Kageyama inhaled sharply above him and stood up a little straighter. Shouyou wanted to say something to him: tell him to come closer, to go away, to stay where he was… He wasn’t sure. But it was too hard to think to try to figure out talking.

Instead of focusing on Kageyama, Shouyou ducked his head and scrunched his eyes closed. “You’re okay, Shouyou. You’re okay. You’re having a panic attack, is all. It happens. Asahi gets them all the time, don’t worry,” Suga explained. “Let’s get you some fresh air, okay?”

Shouyou looked up at Suga, eyes wide as he continued to gasp for breath. Going outside would be good –he could sneak away from his teammate’s concerned glances- but he didn’t think he could walk in his current state.

He was about to attempt to explain, but before he could, he felt his body lift the ground. He looked up at Daichi, confused, as his captain carried him outside.

As soon as Shouyou realized what was happening, he relaxed, admittedly curling into Daichi a little bit. He gripped onto the third year’s t-shirt. His breathing stuttered as he started to calm down, focused on how comforting Daichi was being instead of his anxiety. All too soon, the older boy sat him down against the wall outside of the gym.

“Try taking a couple deep breaths for me, Hinata,” Suga instructed, kneeling down next to him. He ran a hand through Shouyou’s tangled hair, and Shouyou’s own fingers instinctively started twisting into his bangs. Suga clearly noticed the nervous tic and frowned. “Hey, you’re okay. You’re okay,” he promised.

“I should probably go get the rest of the team started,” Daichi said. The words were aimed more towards Suga and less towards Shouyou. Suga nodded.

“Don’t worry, we’re fine,” Suga promised. Daichi made a noise of agreement before walking back into the gym. Shouyou watched him go, only for his eyes to fall on Kageyama hovering in the doorway. The other boy looked… nervous. Not as nervous as Shouyou, anyway, but nervous nonetheless.

Shouyou sniffled and scrubbed his nose off on his sleeve. “I don’t… I don’t know why I’m crying,” he said, looking down at the ground. He was still wheezing a little bit, completely overwhelmed.

Suga rubbed one of his skinny legs. “That’s okay. Sometimes this kind of thing happens to people with high anxiety; you just get worked up out of nowhere.”

“You know a lot about it,” Shouyou commented. He made a squeaking noise. His eyes blinked –hard and fast- a couple of times in a row. His tics had disappeared during all of his crying and hyperventilating, but now that he was calming down, they were back with a vengeance.

“Asahi gets them a lot. Especially at night, even if we’re all just sitting around, hanging out.” Suga finger combed out some of the knots in Shouyou’s hair. “But hey, you’re all right, yeah? What you’re feeling is scary, but it’s not dangerous. You’re in good hands.”

Shouyou made another squeaking noise in response.

“No really, really good hands,” Suga said. He leaned in conspiringly, a mischievous smirk on his face. His voice was low when he spoke to keep others from overhearing. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there’s a certain someone who is very dedicated to see you calm down. He’s checking up on you.”

Shouyou’s eyes flickered over to Kageyama. He was still standing in the doorway, staring at him. He looked absolutely terrified, like any second now, Shouyou would explode into flames or bear fangs and lung at him.

Shouyou snorted, a grin taking over his face.

Suga ruffled his hair, putting back in all of the knots he had so carefully worked out. “See? There’s good people looking over you,” he promised. “Now, what do you need? Do you wanna just hang out here for a bit? Do you wanna go on a walk? How can I help you feel better?”

Shouyou smiled through his tears at his vice captain; although, his facial tics made it difficult. “Honestly, you’re already doing a good job,” he swore.

Kouji stomped with every step as they walked back to Izumi’s place. “You guys are jerks, I don’t know why I bother hanging out with you,” he grumbled, squishing a centipede with his sneaker.

“I think you might just be sensitive,” Izumi replied haughtily, while Kouji smeared off the bottom of his shoe on the pavement. The death glare Izumi received afterwards was incredible. Shouyou doubled over in laughter at the sight. He only laughed harder when Kouji glared at him two seconds later.

“You told Kohaku I liked her!”

“Yeah, liked her. In the past. In elementary school, for goodness sake, that’s not an embarrassing thing for another person to know,” Izumi said. He looked over to Shouyou. “Back me up here, Sho. Tell him what he should already know.”

Kouji kicked at Izumi’s shin. “You’re obnoxious.”

“You know,” Shouyou said, taking a sip of his juice and swirling it around in his mouth for a moment. “Usually, it’s me and Kouji arguing, and Izumi is the one caught in the middle. I don’t know what to do with this role reversal, it’s creeping me out.”

“But you’re not in the middle,” replied Kouji. “I hate you just as much as I hate Izumi.”

“What?! But what did I do?!”

“You laughed. And that’s twice as bad,” he complained, crossing his arms.

Shouyou hummed, throwing his juice box away before jumping on Kouji from behind. He hugged the other boy tightly with his arms and legs. “I’m so sorry, Kouji, please forgive me!” he begged, laughing as Kouji immediately started squirming to get out of Shouyou’s grasp. “I’m sorry! I’m so, so sorry!”

“Get off of me!” Kouji grunted. His face grew redder and redder as he tried to pry off Shouyou’s arms.

“Not until you forgive me!”

“Fine, fine, I forgive you, geez. Now get off!” Kouji demanded. Shouyou hopped off of the other boy’s back. Kouji scowled when Izumi held out a hand for Shouyou to high five, but after a couple tics in a row from the orange-haired boy, Kouji’s expression softened. “Hey, how are you doing, Shou-chan? I feel like we’ve been talking about ourselves all day, we haven’t even asked about you.”

Shouyou turned to look at Kouji, taken aback. “Oh, um… I’m good,” he lied. Sometimes it was easier to lie than to go into all of the details. Or, at least, it would be, if he wasn’t so absolutely terrible at lying. Every time he tried, his tics increased in intensity. Even now, he was crinkling his nose, blinking his eyes, and flapping his arms.

It was all very noticeable, and Izumi tilted his head at him. His critical eye took in every tic. “Okay… Well, if you weren’t doing good, you know you could talk to us, right?” he asked, Kouji nodding vehemently in agreement.

“Of course,” Shouyou said, his tics lying off a bit. He was telling the truth, this time. He may not have told his friends about how bad his anxiety had become, but that was because he didn’t feel like talking about it, not because he didn’t think they were reliable. Kouji and Izumi were his first team. He trusted them like brothers.

“Well, good.” Kouji gave Shouyou a hard stare. “Now let’s hurry up and get to Izumi’s, I’m tired and I want to take a nap in his bed.”

“Like hell that is going to happen,” Izumi said, crinkling up his nose. If there was one thing Shouyou knew about Izumi, it was that he hated people touching his sheets. The last time Shouyou had done so, it was an accident, and Izumi still made him put his blankets through the wash.

Kouji just smirked. “Try to stop me,” he teased, running off. Izumi looked terrified as he watched him race ahead. Shouyou pinched his sides and ran around him, chasing after Kouji while Izumi followed close on his heels.

Cool air whipped past Shouyou’s cheeks, and he smiled brightly. It was beautiful outside, and his friends were laughing as they ran. Maybe Shouyou was anxious, and maybe a lot of things were difficult for him. But at times like these, it was hard to remember what he ever had to be nervous about.

Shouyou was still embarrassed to hang out with the team after the anxiety attack he had muddled through a few days ago. He didn’t like thinking about how the team had all stopped to stare at him; he didn’t like thinking about how he had been gaping like a fish with tears streaming down his cheeks. It was humiliating.

But practice was practice. Shouyou had to get better if they were ever going to make it to nationals, and that meant training hard, no matter how embarrassed he was.

Shouyou was changing into his practice clothes, when Asahi approached him. “Hey, Hinata, how are you holding up?” he asked thoughtfully, tying his long hair back into a bun.

“Fine, I guess,” Shouyou replied, scratching at the back of his neck. He knew that Asahi would probably be more than sympathetic about how anxious he was feeling lately, but he had a hard time feeling comfortable around him. He was so much older, and Shouyou was so twitchy and weird. He didn’t know why Asahi would bother to care about him, regardless of whether or not they were on the same team.

Instead of feeling comforted by Asahi checking up on him, he felt more embarrassed. His cheeks turned pink.

Naturally, the same second he started blushing was the same second Kageyama spontaneously materialized by his side. “You’re making him uncomfortable. Go away,” Kageyama said, as blunt as ever. Asahi’s eyes widened.

“Oh, um-“

“Leave him alone,” Kageyama demanded, eyes narrowing into slits. Asahi jumped a bit and ran off, not taking the time to explain himself. Shouyou squirmed next to Kageyama, the frequency of his tics increasing a bit. He made a couple squeaking noises and blinked his eyes.

“You’ve… you’ve gotta stop doing that,” he said, scrubbing at his scrunching nose.

Kageyama crossed his arms and pouted. (He definitely pouted, Kageyama so pouts, even if he won’t admit to it.) “You’ve gotta stop letting people walk all over you,” he complained. His eyes were still squinted closed into cute little angry crescents. Shouyou huffed out a laugh.

“Asahi asking how I am isn’t me getting walked over,” he replied, rolling his eyes. “I swear, you’ve been going nuts lately.”

“Dumbass, you’re the only thing making me nuts,” Kageyama complained. He slammed his jacket into his gym bag and all but stomped out of the clubroom. Hinata just snorted and watched him go. It was starting to feel like there was no winning with Kageyama.

The preliminaries were coming up quick, and Shouyou has never felt worse at volleyball. Yes, he had improved drastically since the beginning of the year, but he still had so many weaknesses. He hardly trusted himself to serve, and he was terrible at receiving. But the thing he was most nervous about?

Blocking.

“Come on, Hinata. You have to jump before Ennoshita does,” Ukai demanded. Another spike went past Shouyou’s fingertips and slammed on the ground behind him.

He knew he didn’t have to fully stop a spike; he just had to barely touch it to make it fly up for a chance ball. That was enough. A highflying ball was easier to receive than a hard and fast spike. But even getting high enough fast enough to graze the ball with his fingertips was difficult, and Shouyou didn’t like the way his throat was starting to close up. He had to get the next one right. Maybe if he got the next one right, he wouldn’t be so nervous.

“Now, Hinata!” Ukai called from the sidelines as Shouyou tried –and failed- to block another spike from Ennoshita. This time, Shouyou didn’t even get close to meeting the top of the second year’s spike.

Shouyou grunted in frustration, his head jerking to the side. His neck was starting to get stiff. His head shaking had been particularly bad today; it kept turning to the left. He tried to focus on breathing through his nose and staying calm, but his tics were so irritating, and he was doing such a bad job blocking, and he was so anxious today.

Everything was building up towards some kind of awful summit. Bad things kept piling on top of each other, resulting in a mountain of shit that Shouyou had to somehow deal with, all while Ukai yelled at him to jump higher.

Ennoshita got tossed a ball for another spike, but Shouyou didn’t even bother leaping to block it. His heart is beating too loudly in his ears. Instead, he stood still with his feet glued to the ground and his pupils dilated.

Ukai crossed the court, his eyebrows furrowed together. “Oi, Hinata, are you feeling okay?” he asked, clapping a hand on the middle blocker’s shoulder. Hinata blinked up at him.

“Um… I’m… I’m breathing really heavy,” he realized. He wasn’t hyperventilating, exactly, but for a scrimmage that had only lasted ten minutes, he shouldn’t be breathing this hard.

“You are,” his coach agreed. “Are you feeling okay? Do you need a break?”

Shouyou shook his head. Somewhere behind him, he could hear Tanaka muttering, “I get out of breath when we have to run sprints, how come I don’t get breaks?” It was just funny enough to keep Shouyou from crying on the spot. He took a deep –albeit, shaky- breath.

“I think I need to clear my head. It might be good to take a walk,” he admitted. He didn’t miss the bright smile that lit up Suga’s face as he spoke. Suga always got excited when Shouyou did things to take care of himself; it encouraged him to make better choices and take timeouts when he needed them. After all, he couldn’t practice well without being in tiptop shape.

Tiptop shape did not include bordering on a panic attack.

“Sure,” Ukai agreed, giving Shouyou a wary look. His eyes tracked his flapping arms and his scrunching nose. Shouyou’s whole body was shaking like a leaf, he was so anxious, and he knew his coach could see it. “Why don’t you take someone with you? If you’re not feeling well, you should have someone there to make sure you don’t pass out and die all on your own.”

“What?”

Ukai’s hands tightened into fists as he realized how poor his word choice was. “Nothing, just… just have someone walk with you,” he said, turning to survey the team. “Not Suga or Kageyama, though. We need our setters to keep the scrimmage going.”

Shouyou nodded, his heart sinking. Suga would have been his top choice. And Kageyama… Well, even though Kageyama was extremely overbearing and overprotective, for some reason Shouyou was disappointed he couldn’t come with him.

He had locked eyes on Daichi, when the captain spoke up for him. “Asahi, why don’t you go? Ennoshita’s been covering your ass this whole set, anyway,” he said teasingly, but his eyes were fierce.

The whole team was laughing, while Asahi just gulped. “Okay,” he agreed, although it was clear that he was uncomfortable. Shouyou almost felt guilty for making him walk with him, but there were too many other things he was feeling to get hung up on guilt. In fact, he was feeling really stressed, now that he thought about it.

Shouyou quickly walked out of the gym without properly waiting for Asahi. If he didn’t get some fresh air right away, he knew he would break down crying again, and that was the last thing he wanted. He burst out of the gym doors and stood outside with his hands on his knees for a moment, gasping like a fish. Asahi came out to join him a second later.

“Hey, are you okay?”

Shouyou nodded frantically. “Yes. I mean… yes, I’m fine.”

“Okay,” Asahi agreed, nodding. His face paled a moment later, though. “Wait, I’m not making you uncomfortable by asking, am I?”

Shouyou laughed weakly. “No, no, Kageyama just freaks out over me sometimes. It’s nice of you to ask me how I’m doing,” he promised.

Asahi looked comforted, but not for long. The taller boy could be just as fidgety as Hinata when he was nervous. The poor kid had absolutely no poker face; it was always obvious when he felt awkward. “Okay, well then… are you really okay? Because you look…” Asahi trailed off, gesturing at Shouyou’s knocking knees and near constant facial tics.

Shouyou wince. “Actually, I might feel pretty crappy,” he admitted.

Asahi hummed in understanding. “Did something trigger it? Or do you think you just need to let it run it’s course?” he asked.

Shouyou tilted his head up at the other boy. “I don’t really know? I don’t get like this too often. Or, like, I didn’t until recently,” he admitted. He could understand what Asahi was asking, though. Right now, Shouyou was upset mostly because his tics were driving him nuts and he felt like a failure, what with how awful he was at blocking. But the other day when he had a panic attack, it had come from thin air.

“That makes sense. Or… Well, I don’t know if it makes sense, but I didn’t start getting really bad anxiety until high school, either,” Asahi replied. “But my counselor says that it’s good to stay in the present when you’re dealing with a panic attack or anxiety like this, so maybe we should talk about what’s going on now.”

“Now?”

“Yeah, like… I dunno. The sky is really blue right now. It’s kind of incredible.” Asahi’s head tilted up to look at the sky, and Shouyou mirrored the action. His breath hitched as he stared up into the atmosphere.

Shouyou hummed. “Yeah,” he agreed, feeling incredibly tiny all of a sudden. He was used to feeling small, but not like this. It was always breathtaking to see the entire expanse of the sky, stretching out to eternity in either direction.

“Sometimes blue skies are so stressful, it makes me wish it was raining.”

Shouyou shook himself out of whatever trance Asahi had put him into. He laughed a little. “Asahi, you get stressed out by the weirdest stuff. Look at the weather, it’s beautiful!”

Asahi grinned sheepishly. “I think maybe we should go back inside,” he replied, apparently too overwhelmed to stay out any longer. “Are you feeling any better?” he asked.

Shouyou felt his chest and took stock of all his extremities. His tics had relaxed as much as they ever would, and his breathing had returned to normal. He crinkled his nose. “I think I am, yeah. I just wanna finish this scrimmage. I want to put Ennoshita in his place,” he said, his competitive streak shining through. He jumped up to walk inside, while Asahi ruffled his already messy hair.

“Kenma-san, do you know what is at the center of the world?” Natsu asked. Shouyou laughed behind his hand. Yes, his little sister had come into his room without knocking, and yes, she had just interrupted an intense game of Super Smash Bros. However, any trial was worth hearing about the giant squid again, and Shouyou had been losing, anyway.

“Um… it’s a mixture of iron and molten rock, I’m pretty sure,” Kenma replied. It was only Natsu, but even with just her in the room, Kenma’s voice was quieter than it had been when he and Hinata had been alone.

“No, it’s a giant squid.”

Kenma arched an eyebrow, and Shouyou laughed harder. “A giant squid?”

“Yeah! It’s omi… omi… omipetent!”

“Omnipotent,” Shouyou corrected sagely. He and Natsu had been fleshing out their giant squid theory recently, and they had decided that if the squid could control the weather with telekinesis and shoot lava from it’s mouth to make volcanoes explode, then it wouldn’t make any sense if it wasn’t also all-knowing.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Kenma asked, staring incredulously at Shouyou. He would have loved to explain, but he was laughing too hard to even try. Fortunately, Natsu jumped in easily.

“The center of the world is actually empty except for a giant squid that has made it his home, and he controls the universe. He knows everything and sees everything. Nii-chan, ne?”

“Yep. That sounds right to me,” Shouyou agreed easily, grabbing a handful of pretzels and popping them into his mouth one at a time.

Kenma seemed stressed. Whether he was worried about another person being in the room or whether he was deeply concerned about how stupid Shouyou actually was remained unclear. However, after a minute or two –during which Natsu excitedly babbled on about the squid’s lava-spewing capabilities- a sly smile snuck over Kenma’s face.

“That’s fine and all,” he said passively. “But really, the only thing in the center of the world is a radioactive loaf of bread that is so seditious, it is singlehandedly responsible for taking down every dynasty in Japan and China, along with forcing the surrender of every war France has ever fought.”

Honestly, Shouyou had never seen Natsu’s eyes light up so brightly.

“You’re a genius!” she cheered, grabbing one of Kenma’s hands in both of hers. “What’s seditious? What’s radioactive?” she asked. Natsu was looking up at Kenma like he hung the moon and stars, and Shouyou snorted.

“Looks like you’ve made a friend,” he teased. Kenma glared at him.

“I blame you,” he complained before fully answering all of Natsu’s questions. Shouyou laid back on his bed, listening to Kenma make up stories about the loaf of bread and it’s infinite slices. Kenma named it Taberuna ironically.

Eventually, Natsu tired herself out, and Shouyou’s mom found her bothering Kenma with too many questions. Natsu didn’t even look disappointed when she was carried out of Shouyou’s bedroom.

Shouyou grabbed another handful of pretzels and flapped his arms by his side. “You know,” he started, getting Kenma to look up from the controller he was fiddling with and at Shouyou’s face instead. “I think you’re getting better at talking to strangers.”

Kenma immediately flushed. “Ah, I get a lot of practice with Kuroo. He’s so, like… social, you know? He’s always inviting other people to do stuff with us, so it’s either look like a freak or function like a normal human being,” he explained, holding Shouyou’s PlayStation controller so tight, it looked like it was about to break.

“I would think that would bother you,” Shouyou mused, wincing as he started humming the intro to Sword Art Online under his breath.

Kenma, for his part, didn’t even blink. “Yeah, it’s actually really annoying. But I mean… I used to not talk to anyone, so I guess it’s for the best. And like… I don’t want him to get mad at me for not… for not letting him hang out with his friends.” Kenma suddenly looked stricken, and Shouyou actually thought the older boy might throw up on the carpet.

“Hey, I think it’s okay for you to want some alone time with him, you know? You’re best friends. I think he would understand. He probably would hate knowing he has made you uncomfortable,” Shouyou promised.

Kenma squirmed a little bit. “Kuroo is sort of an idiot,” he replied, looking down at the floor.

“An idiot in the I-don’t-know-how-to-tie-my-shoelaces-without-making-bunny-ears way, but not in the I-don’t-care-about-how-my-closest-childhood-friend-feels way,” Shouyou argued. “You should talk to him.”

Kenma looked up at him, a glint in his eye that said something more about the conversation that Shouyou didn’t understand. “You know, for such a dweeb, you give some pretty good advice.”

“I’m very wise. It’s why I know so much about the squid,” Shouyou replied.

Kenma crossed his arms defensively. He looked genuinely angry. The expression was out of place when talking about something so stupid, and Shouyou had to bite back a laugh. “Excuse me? We’ve already been over this, it’s a radioactive loaf of bread.”

Shouyou flashed a toothy smile. “Well, that’s just nonsense.”

Shouyou bounced his feet under his desk. He could tell the students around him were starting to get annoyed by his constant stomping, but he couldn’t help it. He was always more anxious than usual in math class. The second he opened his algebra book, his tics started to get the better of him.

He shook his head a couple times, tears welling in his eyes when realized that he didn’t understand anything the teacher was saying. He was behind three chapters, somehow, despite studying every night.

Shouyou was still on the verge of crying when a folded up piece of paper dropped on his desk.

He whipped around to try to figure out who put it there, but everyone around him had their heads bent, staring at their textbooks. Shouyou sighed and opened up the note. He recognized the handwriting as Kageyama’s almost instantly.

Math is stupid.

Shouyou laughed. Their teacher turned around, and Shouyou covered the noise with a cough, hitting his chest a couple times to make it believable. Fortunately, she was used to him making weird noises by now, and turned back to face the board. Shouyou scribbled underneath Kageyama’s message.

For once, you’re not wrong.

He folded up the note and threw it as hard as he possibly could at the back of Kageyama’s head, laughing as the other boy jumped in his seat.

Kageyama’s reply came a moment later, landing perfectly in the center of his desk.

What do you mean ‘for once,’ idiot?! You’re the one who’s always wrong!

Shouyou snorted at Kageyama’s response. He was such a jerk sometimes. But it wasn’t like Shouyou ever stopped teasing him, so he sort of had a right to be. Plus, at times like these, Shouyou was grateful for Kageyama’s obnoxious personality. It was a good distraction from math (and how terrible it made him feel).

Says the kid who doesn’t know how to pronounce the word ‘chameleon.’

Shouyou watched Kageyama bristle as he read the note. Once again, he found himself laughing behind his hand. He only giggled harder when he read Kageyama’s reply.

It’s a hard word!

Shouyou picked up his pencil to scribble out another note, but class was over before he could finish writing out his sentence. He jolted when the bell rang, realizing that everyone else had their bags already packed while his books were still sprawled out over his desk. He quickly stuffed them away and chased after Kageyama. The setter was halfway down the hall by the time he reached him.

“Hey,” he said, catching up. His arms wrapped around Kageyama’s waist without an invitation. He didn’t let go, even when the taller boy flinched away from him. “You’re great. Thanks for the notes,” he chirped. He was in a considerably better mood than before, and it showed in his tamed tics and smiling face.

Kageyama scratched the back of his neck. “Um… you’re welcome?” he replied. “I don’t really know what I did.”

Shouyou squeezed Kageyama once more and let go of him. He couldn’t hug him forever, even if he felt like it. “You just… I dunno, you notice stuff. You’re really awesome when you’re not yelling at people, you know?”

“I’m awesome all of the time,” Kageyama replied moodily. When Shouyou raised an eyebrow at him, Kageyama smacked him on the back of the head sticking his tongue out. It was annoying how someone as obnoxious as Kageyama could cheer Shouyou up so much.

The third time Hinata feels a panic attack coming on, he is out getting meat buns with the team after practice.

It is frustrating that his anxiety always kicks up when he’s around a lot of people, but he supposes that it makes sense. At home, he’s in a very stable, safe environment, and it’s more difficult for him to feel nervous than relaxed. However, when he is out and about with his friends, Shouyou is always on edge.

He doesn’t want to mess up. He already messes up enough in practice, and with preliminaries only a week away, he would understand if the rest of the team was starting to feel more than a little resentful. The tournament being so close was really getting to Shouyou, and it showed. He was more jumpy than usual; his tics took longer to dispel when he got worked up.

And now, even as he ate a meat bun with his best friends, he felt his breathing start to pick up.

“Ah!” Shouyou shouted once, a couple squeaking noises immediately following the noise. He wrapped his meat bun up in its paper bag as his breathing started to get faster and faster. Now was not the time for eating. He reached out to tug on Suga’s sleeve. “Suga,” he called, getting the older boy to pause his conversation and look at him.

It only took Suga one glance to see that something was wrong. “Oh, okay, don’t worry, just sit down, okay? Try to breathe slowly,” he advised, helping a shaking Shouyou lower down to sit on the sidewalk. Everything about Suga was reassuring right now, from his expression to his touch. Shouyou tried desperately to let the other boy help him calm down, but his heart rate only sped up.

Tears started streaming down his cheeks. “I’m so… I’m so…” Embarrassed, exhausted, sad, anxious, tired, scared, humiliated, overwhelmed… Any word would do, but Shouyou choked every time he tried to speak.

“I understand,” Suga replied regardless, and Shouyou nodded. Suga did understand, he always understood.

Once again, Shouyou found himself surrounded by his teammates almost as soon as he started crying. This was exactly why he would prefer his panic attacks to happen alone in his room, rather than out with his friends. At least then he wouldn’t feel so suffocated.

Per usual, Kageyama was the most smothering out of everyone. The other boy was kneeling next to Suga, right by Shouyou’s side. He was so unbelievably close; Shouyou could feel himself choking with the lack of oxygen. “Hey, is Hinata okay?” Nishinoya asked, and god, was Shouyou tired of that question. Just once, he wanted the answer to be a genuine yes, and it never was.

“I don’t know, you tell me. You’re the one who made him like this,” Kageyama snapped, glaring up at Nishinoya from his spot by Shouyou’s side.

Nishinoya stepped back a little bit. Suga worried his bottom lip between his teeth, but Shouyou could hardly see him do it, he was crying so hard. “Me? What did I do?” Noya questioned.

“It’s what you all did,” Kageyama argued. “You guys keep freaking him out. You just… You all have to leave him alone; all you people do is upset him.” Kageyama could hardly look anyone in the eye. Instead he looked down at the floor, like he had more of a reason to be embarrassed than Shouyou. His bottom lip stuck out in an impressive pout.

Nishinoya looked skeptical, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, Daichi was the one to come forward and put a hand on Kageyama’s shoulder. “Kageyama, you have to understand, it’s not anyone’s faul-“

“Well, how would you know?! You don’t know how he’s feeling or what he’s thinking! He didn’t tell us about his Tourette’s for ages, you don’t know what else is going on in his head! You have to be more careful!”

Daichi’s frown deepened. “Kageyama…”

“No! Don’t tell me I’m wrong! Don’t tell me I’m wrong for being cautious! You have to think about other people. You have to; you can’t just think about yourselves all the time!”

“Kage,” Shouyou choked out between tears, willing the other boy to stop shouting. Strangers on the street were staring, and everyone on the team was watching the setter warily. Kageyama looked down at him, and it was hard to tell through his tears, but Shouyou was pretty sure Kageyama was about to cry himself. “Kag-“

Before he could finish the word, Kageyama had already run off. All the suicides they did in practice had paid off, apparently, because he was a half a block down in a couple strides. Nishinoya stretched out his legs quickly. “I’ll go catch him,” he offered, running after Kageyama before anyone could argue.

“He’s going to be okay, Hinata, let’s just worry about you,” Suga offered. Shouyou nodded and focused on breathing in through his nose. He was going to be okay. Kageyama was going to be okay. Everything was going to be okay.

Nishinoya approached Hinata first thing before morning practice. “Hey, so I talked to Kageyama yesterday, and let me tell you, it’s probably good that I did,” Noya said. He was holding Shouyou’s feet as he did sit-ups. Shouyou’s abs would do anything to switch places with Nishinoya’s, even if Noya would have to take a turn next.

“Yeah?” Hinata puffed out. “Why… is… that?” he sputtered as he reached the top of each crunch.

Nishinoya replaced the hand on one of Shouyou’s sneakers with his knee so he could card his fingers through hair. “Well, like… I don’t know, I know how he feels, you know?” he asked. When Shouyou just kept doing sit-ups without responding, Nishinoya continued. “Before Asahi started going to counseling, he would get panic attacks all of the time. Like… all of the time. And I didn’t know what they meant? Like… like sometimes he’d get them when it was just the two of us, and I’d blame myself, especially when I couldn’t help him calm down, and it was… it was scary. It’s a scary thing to watch someone get so upset so fast. And it doesn’t help that there’s not always a reason for it, you know? Like, sometimes it just happens, and you gotta roll with it, but it doesn’t… it doesn’t make sense to someone like me, who only feels what they want to feel. Like, my brain doesn’t force stress or depression on me, not like Asahi’s does, so… so… Do I make sense?”

Shouyou grunted, half in confirmation and half because his core was so sore. “Switch!” Ukai yelled, and Shouyou collapsed on the floor in relief. He struggled to sit back up and switch places with Nishinoya. A three-minute set of nonstop sit-ups was intense.

“You do make sense,” Shouyou replied when he had caught his breath back. Nishinoya threw him a look that said ‘go on’ as he diligently set about doing as many sit-ups as he possibly could in the allotted three minutes. Shouyou thought for a second. “I can’t imagine what it is like, looking from the outside in. And I can’t imagine helping anyone else with a panic attack; I think I’d be pretty useless at that. So I can understand why Kageyama might feel helpless.”

Nishinoya grunted.

Shouyou peered down the row to see Kageyama at the far end, holding Tsukki’s feet. He looked miserable. Come to think of it, Kageyama looked miserable a lot. But having been friends with Kageyama for a full season, Shouyou knew that Kageyama wasn’t always sad. He knew how to smile; it was just a matter of giving him something to be happy about.

It dawned on Shouyou that outside of their friendship, Kageyama probably felt really lonely.

“Noya, do you talk to Kageyama often?” he asked, turning away from the setter to stare at the team’s libero.

“Hold on,” Nishinoya panted. “I’ve gotta beat Tanaka.”

“Fuck you, Noya. Why are you always gunning for me?” Tanaka complained from a few a few spots down. It was like he had selective supersonic hearing whenever someone was talking smack about him.

“You wanna fight?” Nishinoya asked, not pausing in his sit-ups.

Tanaka muttered something incomprehensible, but Shouyou could see his speed increase out of the corner of his eye. Nishinoya smirked knowingly, not slowing down or stopping until the clock reached three minutes. “One hundred twenty-nine!” Noya called out haughtily. Tanaka swore, and Noya laughed. It was obvious who won.

“Seriously, though, do you talk to Kageyama?” Shouyou asked, switching places again with Nishinoya. He adjusted his feet before the other boy grabbed his ankles.

“Not especially?” Noya replied as Shouyou started his second set. “I was thinking, though, that it would be good for us to talk more. He can be just as rowdy as I can, and he was surprisingly cool last night when we were talking.”

“What did he say?” Shouyou asked. Kageyama continued to be more and more puzzling as the days went by.

“I dunno if I should say,” Nishinoya replied, looking off to the side uncertainly.

Shouyou frowned as he started doing sit-ups. “I mean… You probably can. I know almost everything about Kageyama anyway,” he said. He was almost surprised by how true the statement was. He really did know everything about Kageyama.

Nishinoya’s eyes locked onto Shouyou’s, suddenly incredibly serious. The look on his face was so intense that Shouyou froze mid-crunch. His abs shook as he half sat up and half leaned back, and Nishinoya chewed on his bottom lip before speaking. “He likes you a lot, Hinata. You should know that.”

“Right,” Hinata squeaked.

Shouyou’s tics decided to surprise him as he tried to order from a vending machine. He groaned when his flapping arms made him click on the milk Kageyama liked instead of the juice he wanted. Well, at least Kageyama would like it. He was happy someone would get to drink it, even if Shouyou didn’t want it.

The sound of girls giggling caught his attention, and he turned around to see a group of second-years laughing and pointing. He felt a blush creep down his neck when he heard the word “spazz” thrown out in their conversation.

“Excuse me? Would you mind telling me what you think is so funny?” Kageyama asked, moving to stand slightly in front of Hinata. His arms were crossed over his chest, and Shouyou frowned. This overprotective behavior was insane.

“I’m sorry?” one of the girls asked. Her hair was in low hanging pigtails with little star shaped clips. She was cute. Or, she would be, if Shouyou didn’t know how mean she was.

“I said, why don’t you tell me what you think is so funny?” Kageyama demanded. The girls were quiet. “If you’re going to laugh at someone, first of all, don’t. And second of all, try to be more subtle about it.”

“Kageyama,” Shouyou interrupted, grabbing the other boy’s arm. Kageyama turned to look at him, fire in his eyes. “Let’s just walk away, yeah?”

It was clear just by the look on Kageyama’s face that he did not like that idea at all, but he didn’t fight Shouyou as he pulled him away. Although, he did glare at the girls behind them.

Kageyama toddled after him complacently, and sat down when Shouyou nudged him to take a seat on a bench. “So I think, that maybe we need to talk,” Shouyou said timidly.

“About what?” Kageyama asked, looking at him quizzically.

This was definitely a conversation that should have happened earlier. Shouyou held one of Kageyama’s hands, Nishinoya’s words giving him confidence. He likes you a lot. You should know that. He took a deep breath. “You need to calm the fuck down.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me,” Shouyou replied, his nose twitching. “Those girls were being shitty, and it sucks when people laugh at me, but they don’t know. They don’t understand.”

“But that doesn’t make them laughing at you okay,” Kageyama replied, standing up. Apparently, he was done sitting down already. His shoulders pinched together like they always did when he was especially angry, but Shouyou didn’t let it intimidate him. He didn’t even let go of Kageyama’s hand. “You can’t let people blindly make fun of you, Hinata; that’s so stupid!”

“But that’s not what it is!” Shouyou replied, squeezing Kageyama’s hand in both of his, desperate to make him understand.

“Well, what do you call it, then?!” Kageyama snapped. “You let people yell at you for being loud, and for moving around, and for your anxiety when you can’t help any of that stuff! You don’t even tell people when you feel like shit! You just start crying, and it’s dumb! It’s dumb, Hinata. You’re so stupid!”

“You’re stupid!”

“Well, you’re really stupid!”

“This is stupid!” Shouyou complained. “Stop yelling at me, and just tell me what you’re actually feeling. It’s my life, the way people treat me has nothing to do with you, so why are you so upset about it?” he asked.

“Because I care about you!” Kageyama exclaimed. Shouyou hardly even blinked, but Kageyama looked like someone had punched him in the face. “I care about you, okay?” he repeated, his voice small. “And you used to let me make fun of you all of the time.”

Shouyou chewed on his bottom lip. His head whipped to the side, and he bounced on his toes. “But Kageyama, you didn’t know,” Shouyou pointed out, voice light and airy. He was using the same gentle tone he spoke with when he woke Natsu up in the morning. “And I can take a little teasing. I wouldn’t dish it out, if I couldn’t take it.”

“But you don’t get it,” Kageyama replied. “I don’t know why you wouldn’t tell me. I thought we were supposed to… trust each other. But you didn’t even have enough faith in me to tell me about the neurological disorder I kept making fun of you for.”

“Are you crying?” Shouyou asked.

“No, I’m just… frustrated,” he replied, as two twin tears rolled down his face, one on each cheek.

“I think you might be crying,” Shouyou replied, his eyebrows scrunching together skeptically. He pried one hand away from Kageyama’s (he just now realized that the other boy had been holding back), and reached up to thumb away the track of one of Kageyama’s tears. “You don’t normally cry when you’re frustrated. Normally you stomp around and yell a lot.”

“So?”

“So,” Shouyou prompted, “Maybe you’re not just frustrated. Maybe it’s something else. You’re capable of emotions other than anger, yeah? Try feeling them for a change.”

Kageyama glared as if Shouyou had insulted him, which –honestly- he probably had. But two seconds later, his face crumbled and he looked off to the side. “I feel awful,” he admitted. He looked torn, like he was about two snap in two. “I’m just… I’m so sorry for hurting your feelings, Hinata. I regret it all the time. I feel so guilty, I wish I could take it all back, I wish I could-“

“Hey,” Shouyou said, cutting his setter off. “You can’t feel guilty if I’m not mad at you, yeah? And I’m not. Mad at you, that is. Just relax.” Shouyou’s thumb caressed Kageyama’s cheek, and he realized belatedly that he was still cupping the other boy’s jaw in his hand. He pulled it away jerkily. “We’re fine, you know?” he squeaked, feeling anything but.

“But you’re not fine. You get so sad so fast, and I feel like it’s all my fault, I should be taking better care of you.”

Shouyou blinked. Never before had Kageyama looked so small. Not once had he let himself be this vulnerable in front of Shouyou, but here he was, sitting in the courtyard where anyone could walk by, looking so absolutely tiny that Shouyou felt frozen just staring at him. Shouyou’s searched his back pocket for the milk he’d tucked away. “Here, drink this,” he ordered, forcing Kageyama to sit down again.

He didn’t speak again until the other boy was calmer, his milk box drained.

“Listen… I don’t want to hear you say that you think you should be taking better care of me for two reasons. First, I can take care of myself. I know I’m scrappy, and I… cry and throw up more than I probably should, but I can handle a lot of things,” he promised. If there was one thing Shouyou was, it was defiant. He could take on anything life had to throw at him. “Second, you take great care of me, okay? Sometimes, you take care of me too well, and that’s why you need to calm down.”

“I’m not going to just sit and watch while people make fun of you,” Kageyama said, voice cracking. Shouyou pretended not to notice.

“You don’t have to. But maybe don’t yell at Asahi when he asks me how I’m doing. And don’t yell at Tanaka and Nishinoya when they make light of my tics. It’s all harmless, you know? I don’t mind it,” he promised. “And even if I did mind it, it would be okay because sometimes people have to put up with a little discomfort in their every day life, you know? Things are going to upset you, sometimes, you just have to bounce back.”

Kageyama seemed to think about what he had to say, and Shouyou held his breath. He knew Kageyama, and he was either about to agree or yell. There was no middle ground. “Fine… As long as you’re okay, that’s what matters.”

“Good,” Shouyou replied, breathing out a sigh of relief. He stood up and held out his hand expectantly. “Now. The score is 123 to 125, and you’re winning. Let’s have a speed-eating competition while we eat lunch, I’m great at those,” he suggested, going right back to competition mode. He liked using his lunch breaks to beat Kageyama at the things he was good at.

“… Fine,” Kageyama agreed, looking entirely worn out. Shouyou frowned and bumped their shoulders as they walked, his nose crinkling and his eyes blinking.

“Oh, and Kageyama?” he asked, a sudden gust of courage washing over him.

“Yeah?”

“I care about you, too. I don’t want you to feel guilty as much as you don’t want me to feel sad,” Shouyou said, unable to look Kageyama in the eye due the intensity of his words. Kageyama made him feel so strongly about everything, but Shouyou was used to feeling angry and determined around him, not whatever this was. “So don’t, okay?”

Kageyama gulped audibly next to him. “Okay,” he agreed. And just like that, Shouyou watched some of the tension leave Kageyama’s shoulders.

“Something is different,” Daichi said, fingers drumming on the volleyball he was holding. His eyes flickered back and forth between Kageyama and Hinata. “Kageyama… You seem oddly calm.”

Kageyama tensed next to Shouyou (they were standing so close, Shouyou could feel it). He didn’t say anything, so Shouyou decided to play knight in shining armor and come to his rescue. “Isn’t that a good thing, though?” he asked. “We have preliminaries just around the corner. We need to go in feeling relaxed and confident.”

Daichi looked between them again. He seemed skeptical. “Right,” he agreed slowly. Shouyou squirmed, feeling awkward. Fortunately, the weird atmosphere broke when Daichi took a long swig from his water bottle and stood up. “Alright, break is over! Diving drills next,” he barked.

Everyone groaned. Morning practice had been particularly grueling with the tournament coming up. Daichi wanted to cram in every last bit of training he could before they competed. Hinata got in line behind Kageyama, but Suga tapped him on the shoulder before he could take his turn. “You guys talked, didn’t you?” he asked, as Shouyou bent his knees to dive.

“Um… yeah. Yesterday at lunch.”

“He seems more comfortable,” Suga commented. Shouyou blinked and looked up to see Kageyama dusting off and elbow while Nishinoya elbowed him in the side, laughing about something. Suga was right; he did seem comfortable. He wasn’t even glaring at Noya, despite how much the libero was talking to him. “Did anything else good come out of your conversation?”

“No?” Shouyou replied. He didn’t know what Suga meant by that. Instead of sticking around to find out, though, he dove on the ground to practice receiving. Shouyou winced when he bumped his chin. Everyone was being weird, and he didn’t like it.

“Well, would you look who it is!”

Shouyou immediately hid behind Kageyama, holding onto his jacket. They had only been at the tournament for one game, and they had already run into him: The Grand King.

“My stupidly adorable kouhai,” Oikawa practically cooed, hands over his heart. Somewhere to the side, Shouyou could hear girls squealing. He understood why Oikawa was considered to be such a heartthrob; he was objectively attractive and he seemed like a really nice person.

But he was cocky as hell.

“Oikawa,” Kageyama greeted stiltedly. Shouyou didn’t have to read the setter’s mind to know what he was thinking. We have a Date Tech match up next. We don’t have time for a stupid conversation with stupid Oikawa. Shouyou couldn’t agree more, and he hoped Kageyama would get them out of this conversation quickly.

“So I heard you won your first game,” Oikawa exclaimed happily. If Shouyou didn’t know any better, he would say that Oikawa was actually excited for them. But Shouyou knew all about how competitive Oikawa could be, and he didn’t trust him as far as he could throw him. In fact, just being near the Grand King made Shouyou nervous, and he started humming loudly.

Kageyama made a growling noise in the back of his throat. He was always on edge around anyone from his middle school team, but Shouyou had a feeling his anger had more to do with the way his tics were flaring up. Kageyama was completely ignorant to his own feelings, but he was highly perceptive of Shouyou’s.

Shouyou was worried that Kageyama would start yelling at Oikawa for making him anxious, but he managed to hold himself back. Instead, he was very curt. “We did,” Kageyama answered brusquely.

Shouyou’s hands tightened on the other boy’s jacket, and his head whipped to the side multiple times in a row. He hopped in place a couple times. His nose scrunched up, his eyes blinked, his elbows flapped at his side. He probably looked crazy.

The way Oikawa was looking at him made him think definitely. He definitely looked crazy.

“Right…” Oikawa trailed off, staring at Shouyou. “Kageyama, is your boyfriend okay? He looks like he’s having a seizure,” Oikawa pointed out, hand on his hip and eyebrows furrowed together. He looked concerned. Shouyou would actually be flattered if Oikawa wasn’t being so stupid about it.

A sharp inhale on Kageyama’s part made Shouyou jump back from the other boy. Across the courtyard, Shouyou noticed Seijo’s ace –Iwaizumi- look away from his conversation to stare at the back of Oikawa’s head. Their eyes met, and almost instantaneously, Iwaizumi stomped over to them. He smacked Oikawa on the back of the head. “Are you being an idiot?” he asked, while Oikawa grabbed his skull and wailed.

“Ow, no! Iwa-chan, you’re so mean!”

“He has Tourette’s,” Kageyama spoke up. His voice was surprisingly calm for someone who usually screamed at people simply for talking to Shouyou. “It’s an inherited neuropsychiatric disorder with onset in childhood, characterized by multiple physical tics and at least one vocal tic. These tics characteristically wax and wane, can be suppressed temporarily, and are preceded by a premonitory urge.”

Shouyou arched an eyebrow up at his setter. Those definitely weren’t his own words; it sounded like he was reading off of a pamphlet. “What are you quoting?” he muttered under his breath, but Oikawa spoke over him.

“What does ‘premonitory’ even mean?” Oikawa questioned.

Kageyama looked stumped. “Um…. Um…” His voice was shaky, and he looked confused. “These tics characteristically wax and wane, can be suppressed temporarily, and are preceded by a premonitory urge,” he repeated, and Shouyou groaned.

“Oh my gosh, you’ve memorized the Wikipedia page,” he realized, smacking a hand to his forehead despite his twitching nose and jerking head. “For kings, you guys are both so stupid,” he groaned. “All you need to know is that I have Tourette’s. It’s a neurological problem. I have these things called tics, which are what I’m doing now –all this blinking and nose scrunching- and sometimes it’s worse than others, sometimes I can hold them back, and I always feel a compulsion to do them before I actually do them,” he explained.

“How do you play volleyball like that?” Oikawa asked, sounding somewhat aghast, and Iwaizumi grabbed onto his forearm.

“That’s it, you’re being intrusive. You’re not allowed to socialize anymore,” Iwaizumi determined, pulling Oikawa away from Shouyou and Kageyama despite the other boy’s whining.

Shouyou turned to Kageyama, tempted to drag him away, too. It was only then that he noticed the way Kageyama’s face had fallen, the corners of his mouth turned down in a frown. He tilted his head up at the other boy. “Hey, are you okay? You did a really good job just now. You didn’t yell or anything,” he complimented, hoping to cheer his best friend up.

Kageayama kicked at the ground. “I should be able to explain it to people,” he complained, and Shouyou instinctively reached up to rub Kageyama’s back when his shoulders pinched together. He hated how tense Kageyama became when he was frustrated with himself.

“Stupid, I told you not to feel guilty anymore,” Shouyou reminded him. His words were as snotty as ever, despite how gently he was touching the other boy. Kageyama didn’t look at him, and Shouyou sighed. “I care about you, remember? I don’t want you feeling like this on my behalf, okay?”

“Okay.”

“So can we focus on the tournament now? I want to beat Date Tech, and to do that, we have to go warm up,” he pointed out.

Kageyama took a deep breath. “Fine. Just promise me one thing, okay?” he asked, finally making eye contact with Hinata. His eyes were more expressive than Shouyou was used to seeing them, and he reached his free hand up to twirl his hair a bit. “Promise you’ll teach me about this stuff, okay? Promise you’ll talk to me about it. About what you’re feeling and stuff,” he demanded. Kageyama’s jaw was set firm, like he wouldn’t leave until Shouyou agreed.

A small smile lit up Shouyou’s face. He grabbed on of Kageyama’s hands with both of his. “I promise as long as you promise the same thing,” he agreed. “Teach me about you. Tell me about you.”

Kageyama blinked, but his shoulders relaxed. “I promise.”

“Good!” Shouyou chirped. “Race you to the gym?”

“Oh, you are so on.”

Chapter Text

If losing to Aoba Johsai was heart wrenching, then the walk home after the tournament was equivalent to digging open Shouyou’s chest cavity with bare hands and squeezing his heart until it popped.

Shouyou was all too conscious of Kageyama walking next to him. His arm brushed Shouyou’s elbow as he pushed his bike. Things were usually tense between them, but not like this. Their promise to talk about their –ugh- feelings hung over Shouyou’s head as they made their way home.

Because, right now, Shouyou felt awful.

Volleyball was a team sport; Shouyou knew that. He had learned his lesson as thoroughly as anyone possibly could. But he still felt responsible for making Karasuno lose the game. If he had just been a little bit faster, if he had just jumped a little bit higher-

Shouyou’s head whipped to the left.

If he could just be still, maybe they wouldn’t have lost. Maybe they would have been able to do everything he said they would; maybe they could have gone to nationals.

Shouyou was still moping, anxiety making his tics flare up more so than usual, when Kageyama cleared his throat. Shouyou jumped at the broken silence. “So… This is… shitty,” Kageyama said. “It’s sad that we lost.”

Except Kageyama didn’t sound sad. He sounded angry. Shouyou looked up at him, confused, when he noticed the other boy’s petulant expression. “Wait,” he said, laughing. “Are you…?”

“I promised I would tell you how I feel,” he snapped.

Shouyou giggled. He couldn’t tell if he was amused or incredibly endeared that all of Kageyama’s emotions were shrouded in anger.

Kageyama smacked him on the head when he didn’t stop laughing at him. “Shut up! I just told you I’m sad, you’re not supposed to laugh at me for that! I’m supposed to be able to trust you!” he said indignantly, his face screwed up into a frown.

Shouyou hid his smile behind his hands unthinkingly, and his bike collapsed onto the street. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he promised. He didn’t bother to move for his bicycle; Kageyama was already picking it up. “It’s not funny that you’re sad, it’s just funny how you said it, you know? You sounded so… so…” Shouyou made a muffled noise into his palms as he tried to keep from laughing. “I dunno, ridiculous!”

“Well, it’s irritating,” Kageyama replied. “I hate losing.”

Shouyou quieted at that. He didn’t exactly need the reminder that they had lost. It was devastating. He had been training for so long and so hard, and now all of that work had been thrown out the window. He frowned, looking down at his toes, while Kageyama pushed his bike for him.

“How are you feeling?” Kageyama asked after an unreasonable amount of silence passed between them.

Shouyou huffed out a sigh. He didn’t really want to talk about how he was feeling. He was sure that Kageyama would tell him he was wrong for feeling responsible, but Shouyou didn’t want to put in the work to feel good about himself. He wanted to be sad and cranky, not pull his insecurity out from under the rug. But he made a promise to Kageyama, and he figured he should follow through. “I mean… honestly, I feel like maybe it’s my fault that we lost. Like… maybe if I was more experienced, we would have won.”

Kageyama glared at him.

Shouyou put his hands up in surrender. “I know I’m not right! I know that’s not how it works, I just… I feel that way, I can’t help it,” he explained, his nose crinkling and eyes blinking all the while. His facial tics had been going crazy ever since they got off the bus.

Kageyama stopped shooting daggers at him, and instead looked at him appraisingly. “You can’t help it like how you can’t help your tics?” he asked.

Shouyou tried to feel flattered that Kageyama bothered asking, instead of embarrassed that he had tics in the first place. He hopped up on the curb, arms flapping by his side as he tried to balance. “Um… Well, it’s kind of hard to tell,” he answered. He tried focusing on tiptoeing along the curb rather than how fast his heart was racing. “Sometimes I don’t know if my anxiety is making me think things, or if there’s actually some truth to them? But I guess that’s the same with my tics and stuff. Because sometimes I don’t know if I’m blinking because I’m surprised or because I have the impulse to, or like… sometimes I don’t know if I’m scrunching my nose because I’m confused or because I have to. Its super complicated.”

Kageyama hopped on his bicycle. He pedaled slowly alongside Shouyou. “There’s no truth to you making us lose at preliminaries, dumbass,” he muttered.

Shouyou looked over at his friend, a smile sweeping over his face when he noticed Kagyeama’s dark expression. He giggled, arms flapping faster at his side. “You look like you’re dying. Does it hurt you to be nice or something?”

“Yes,” Kageyama said, scowl deepening.

Shouyou laughed, not stopping until they reached the corner where they usually parted ways. Kageyama jumped off his bike.

“Thanks,” Shouyou said as the setter passed him his bicycle. He bit his bottom lip. “Hey… You know, today’s probably not a good day for it because I’m so bummed out, and so are you, but would you maybe want to come over to my house sometime-“

“Yes,” Kageyama replied before he could finish. A blush coated his cheeks when he realized how fast he had answered. Shouyou arched an eyebrow at him as Kageyama went from flustered to cool in a matter of seconds. “Sorry, I mean, whatever. That could be fun, I guess,” he tacked on.

Shouyou snorted.

“Right. Okay. Well, maybe tomorrow then, huh?”

Kageyama looked up at him, his eyes sparkling in a way that Shouyou hadn’t seen before. “You can count on it,” he replied. He didn’t break the intimate eye contact between them, and it made Shouyou nervous. He only saw Kageyama get this intense when it was about volleyball.

“All right, see you later, weirdo,” Shouyou replied. He’d had enough of Kageyama’s disturbing behavior. He hopped on his bike and pedaled away, excited to have the other boy over, even if he was being strange.

Shouyou spoke through a massive bite of rice, his words hardly understandable. “Natsu, you should probably invite a friend over tomorrow. Kageyama’s coming, so you’re going to need somebody else here if you don’t want to play by yourself.”

His mother dropped her chopsticks.

“I’m sorry. Did you say Kageyama?” she asked. The smile on her face made Shouyou squirm, he was so uncomfortable.

“Um… yeah. I said he should come over, and he said yes, I dunno,” he replied with a shrug, staring down at his plate to avoid eye contact. His mother always got a little intense when he mentioned Kageyama’s name. She didn’t seem mad, of course. To the contrary, she seemed excited. Too excited.

“Interesting,” his mother practically cooed.

“Interesting!” Natsu copied, jumping up and down in her seat.

Shouyou watched his mother warily as she folded her hands under her chin, leaning in as if she was incredibly interested by what her son had to say. “Do I need to take off work early tomorrow? Is it safe to leave you two in the house alone together?” she asked.

Shouyou choked on his rice. “Excuse me?” he asked. Suddenly, he felt sick to his stomach.

His mother stopped leering at him and instead leaned back in her chair. “No closing the door to your bedroom when Kageyama is over,” she ordered, ignoring Shouyou’s question. “In fact, make sure you both stay in the living room. I don’t trust you to be anywhere I can’t easily walk in on you,” she teased.

Realization hit Shouyou like one of Oikawa’s serves, straight to the face.

“Mom!” he squeaked, ducking down to hide his head under the table. He couldn’t let his mother look at him right now; he was blushing so hard. “Kageyama and I aren’t going to like… make out or something, why would you assume that? We’re just friends! Barely friends, at that. We’re still working on it!”

His voice was a little too shrill to come off as anything other than defensive. He sounded like he was lying, and acknowledging it only made his face feel twice as hot.

Natsu’s feet disappeared from under the table as she stood up on her chair. “Wait, Kageyama and Hinata are going to kiss?” she asked, excited.

Shouyou groaned and his mother laughed. “Not if I’m here to do anything about it,” she said. Shouyou could practically hear her smirk. He was approximately two seconds from throwing up on the floor.

Shouyou would have been content to stay hidden under the table forever, but his tics were making him jumpy, and he hit his head a few too many times for it to be safe. He put on his best glare as he sat up correctly in his seat. Unfortunately, his mom and sister only laughed at his pouty expression.

“Don’t worry, dear, we’re only teasing,” his mom promised, patting the back of his hand kindly. Shouyou felt flushed.

“You guys are actually the worst,” he grumbled, picking at his food.

Natsu giggled, bouncing back into her seat with a massive smile on her face. “You love us,” she corrected in a singsong voice. Shouyou looked up at her, taking in her messy hair –little wisps falling out of her braid- and giant round eyes. He huffed out a sigh.

“Unfortunately, you’re not wrong,” he complained. Shouyou might have sounded mad, but it was hard to miss the grin he wore as he finished up his meal.

Shouyou tensed when Tsukishima and Yamaguchi lined up for serving practice behind him. Normally, Shouyou avoided the other first years at all costs. He had already had enough frustrating conversations during the school day; he didn’t need to add onto that number by talking to Tsukki and his slightly more tolerable sidekick.

“Hey, so I heard Kageyama is going to your house after practice today,” Yamaguchi snickered.

Shouyou took it back: Yamaguchi wasn’t tolerable at all. He was just as bad as Tsukki, if not worse.

Yamaguchi was the eleventh person to ask Shouyou about his after school plans. He didn’t know how everyone found out about him and Kageyama spending the afternoon together, and he didn’t know why everyone thought it was their business when it wasn’t. “Why does everyone keep making such a big deal about it? We’re just hanging out,” he asked, arms flapping with frustration.

What he and Kageyama did after school wasn’t of anyone else’s concern.

Yamaguchi smiled knowingly, looking startlingly like Suga for a second. “Yeah, but are you hanging out, or are you hanging out?” he asked slyly.

Shouyou blinked twice at the other boy before smacking his forehead. He groaned. “We’re just hanging out! As friends!” he whined. “No one teases you and Tsukki when you guys hang out! No one bothers Nishinoya and Tanaka! This is so unfair.”

Yamaguchi shrugged, but he didn’t look sympathetic at all. Shouyou watched the other boy open his mouth to say something, but before he could, Tsukki nudged him in the side. “Shut up, Yamaguchi,” he demanded. “If he doesn’t see the difference between him and Kageyama and the rest of the team, then he doesn’t deserve to know.”

Shouyou ignored him and went to serve. As he threw the ball in the air, he overheard Tsukki whisper behind his hand.

“He’ll find out when Kageyama tries to shove his tongue down his throat,” he said quietly, albeit not quietly enough. Noise carried easily through the gym, and Shouyou was certain that just about everyone had overheard.

He forgot about the volleyball he had tossed up until it landed on his head. A blush quickly swept over his cheeks. He felt his tics rev up into high gear as embarrassment washed over him.

He reached for another volleyball from the cart to serve, but he found his arms were shaking too hard to throw it correctly, and his head was turning too much to see. He hated this; he hated having to put his life on hold to wait for his tics to die down.

“I’m just going to step out of line,” he said, defeated.

He all but slammed the ball into Tsukki’s chest as he passed it to him and moved off to the side. As he walked to the edge of the gym, he noticed Kageyama standing at the back of one of the lines to serve. He was stick straight with his eyes blown wider than usual. Shouyou tilted his head to the side. Was it just him, or did Kageyama look especially sweaty for someone who was only practicing serves?

“Hey, are you okay?” Shouyou asked. He was still twitching like crazy, but it was easier to ignore when he was focused on Kageyama. The other boy wasn’t paying attention to him at all, though. Instead, he was staring with his eyes fixed on the floor. “Hey, idiot, I’m talking to you!”

The insult seemed to lift Kageyama out of his daze. He looked up at Shouyou. “I’m not… I’m not… I’m…” Kageyama couldn’t put together a sentence. He seemed terrified. “My tongue…” As Kageyama trailed off, a scowl took over his face. He’d gone from scared to angry in less than a millisecond: a personal best.

Shouyou’s head tilted further to the side. He had a feeling he knew what Kageyama was trying to say, even if he couldn’t communicate it properly. He’d gotten better at reading his setter: half out of necessity and half out of prolonged exposure. “Hey, just ignore him. I invited you over because I like you and I wanted to. Just relax.”

“You like me?”

It’s only three words, but it’s an improvement from Kageyama’s prior attempts at speaking. “I mean… I think it’s okay for us to be friends instead of rivals now. We’re on the same team and we’ve been through a lot,” Shouyou replied. He backtracked quickly. “Unless you still hate me or something and are just really good at hiding it.”

Kageyama looked like he’d been kicked in the chest. “Hinata, I definitely don’t hate you,” he managed to choke out. He looked off to the side, clearly flustered, before his usual grumpy face slipped back into place. “But you are annoying.”

“You’re annoying. You freak out all of the time!”

“You’re the one with anxiety! You shouldn’t yell at me for getting worked up!”

Shouyou smiled impishly. “Ah, but I have an excuse. You go crazy for no reason,” he pointed out.

“Kageyama, it’s your turn to serve,” Ennoshita said, interjecting himself into their argument. Kageyama’s scowl deepened, and Shouyou laughed. Arguing with Kageyama always put him in an oddly good mood. He could feel his anxiety leaving his body in waves. A few high-pitched vocal tics were all that were left from his Tourette’s flair up; he was back to feeling relaxed.

The rest of practice passed by in a blur of receives and spikes. It was almost stupidly ordinary, except for one thing: Kageyama.

For the whole of practice, the setter stuck to Shouyou like glue. Every toss went to Shouyou, every glance went to Shouyou, every passing comment went to Shouyou. It was like the rest of the team ceased to exist to Kageyama. If Shouyou didn’t know any better, he would say that Kageyama was being clingy.

By the time they had left the clubroom and started walking home, Shouyou figured getting a little closer to Kageyama wouldn’t hurt. “Do you wanna share my bike?” he asked. “You can ride on the back.”

“That’s illegal, dumbass,” Kageyama replied.

“You’re illegal.”

“You don’t even make sense!”

“Yes, I do! Listen! It’s going to take us ages to get home if we walk; I live a half an hour away when I’m pedaling as fast as I can. We’re going to have to share,” Shouyou explained. Despite how stubborn Kageyama could be; Shouyou usually got his way. He was twice as determined as anyone else on the team.

True to form, Kageyama sighed and looked down at his shoes. “Fine,” he grumbled, crossing his arms in defeat. “But you’re too short for me to hold onto, so you have to ride on the back.”

A bright smile lit up Shouyou’s face. “Okay!” he agreed happily. He clambered up onto the back of the bicycle as soon as Kageyama had raised the seat and handle bars so he could fit properly.

“You’re bike is so small,” he complained as he pulled off the curb. Shouyou wrapped his arms a little more securely around Kageyama’s shoulders.

“I think it’s the perfect size,” he pouted, nose crinkling into Kageyama’s t-shirt. He tried to keep his head still. He didn’t want to knock heads with Kageyama while he was steering. If they swerved into a ditch and broke their legs, they wouldn’t be able to play volleyball.

Shouyou would die if he couldn’t play volleyball.

“You think it’s a good size because you are also really small,” Kageyama replied.

Shouyou crinkled his nose a few more times and blinked his eyes. He resisted the urge to smack Kageyama on the back of the head. “Idiot, you’re so annoying! Stop making fun of me for my height. If I could change it, I would!”

“It wasn’t an insult!” Kageyama snapped. They whipped around a corner, and Shouyou had to squeeze onto Kageyama to keep from flying off. He didn’t miss the small noise the other boy made in the back of his throat. “Being small isn’t always a bad thing.”

Shouyou scoffed. “Well, what would you know?”

“Plenty,” Kageyama said defensively. “Like… I don’t know. Some small things are cute. Not you, of course, but some are.”

Shouyou hummed thoughtfully at that. “Natsu is cute,” he replied. “She’s really small, though, so actually, if it’s cool with you, we have to swing by her school and pick her up from soccer. She isn’t big enough to walk home on her own.”

“Well then, of course we can pick her up, stupid,” Kageyama said. Shouyou didn’t have to see his face to know he was rolling his eyes. “I’m not going to make your tiny little sister walk home on her own; I’m not some kind of jerk!”

“Most people would beg to differ,” Shouyou pestered.

Kageyama jerked the handlebars, and Shouyou squealed when he nearly fell off the bicycle. “Serves you right,” Kageyama teased. Shouyou stuck his tongue out even though Kageyama couldn’t see him. It didn’t really matter. Fighting with Kageyama like this was comfortable, familiar. Shouyou found himself pulling himself closer and closer to the other boy as they bantered back and forth.

“You’re annoying. But I’m excited for you to meet Natsu,” Shouyou admitted.

Kageyama tilted his head to the side. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. She’s really cool. She’s going to love you, I promise.”

“I dunno about that,” Kageyama said, lifting one hand to scratch at the back of his neck. He seemed uncertain. Normally, Kageyama had all the confidence in the world, so it was always strange to see him shrink inwards on himself like this. Shouyou frowned and patted Kageyama’s head.

“Don’t be silly,” he said reassuringly. He wasn’t about to let Kageyama feel insecure for even a second. Yes, he made fun of Kageyama all of the time, but that didn’t mean he actually wanted the other boy to feel bad about himself. “She’s going to love you.”

“Right,” Kageyama replied, but Shouyou could tell he didn’t believe him.

He decided to let the matter go, however. It was clear that Kageyama didn’t want to talk about it, and Shouyou was having too much fun to talk about anything sad. The weather was beautiful, and cool air blew through his hair as they rode along. It was impossible not to be in a good mood. He could tell that Kageyama was perking up as they biked towards Natsu’s school. Shouyou gave him directions on where to turn as he talked about all the stores they passed, the people who worked inside them, and the stories he had about them from biking to school every morning.

By the time they reached Natsu, Shouyou’s throat was dry from talking too much. However, he still called out his little sister’s name when he spotted her running towards him. “Natsu!” he cheered. He swept the small girl up and spun her in a circle. “How was soccer?” he asked.

“Good! I scored a goal!”

“In the wrong team’s net!” argued a tiny voice from below. Natsu wiggled down from Shouyou’s arms.

“Nii-chan, this is Maiko!” Natsu explained. She nudged her friend forward. Maiko suddenly looked shy, but fortunately, Shouyou was great with nervous kids. He reached out to shake the little girl’s hand, treating her like a grownup. Maiko giggled.

“Of course, Maiko. The fellow squid believer, right?” he asked, and Maiko nodded excitedly. Shouyou smiled. “Perfect! Also, guess what! I brought a friend today, too. His name is Kageyama.” Shouyou turned back to properly introduce Kageyama to the two girls, but he was on the other side of the schoolyard, hiding by Shouyou’s bicycle. He looked nervous, if the way his eyes flickered between all of the other pint-sized soccer players was any indication. Shouyou sighed. “He’s shy, though. Let’s go meet him!”

“Okay!” Natsu and Maiko chorused. Shouyou lead them over to Kageyama.

“Alright! Girls, this is Kageyama-san. But you can call him Tobio,” he said with a smirk. He knew full well that Kageyama was too nervous to call him out on it.

“Right. Tobio,” Kageyama agreed, although his eyes narrowed at Shouyou.

“Tobio, did you know Shouyou complains about you all of the time?” Natsu asked. Shouyou winced. He forgot that his little sister didn’t have a filter.

Fortunately, Kageyama didn’t seem too surprised or hurt. “That’s fine, I complain about him, too,” he deadpanned. Shouyou squeezed Natsu’s wrist and gave her a look to tell her to keep quiet. Fortunately, she seemed to get the message.

“Let’s just head home,” Shouyou advised, leading the way. The walk from the elementary school to Shouyou’s house was a fast one. They lived only a few doors down. Shouyou was embarrassed by the jump rope left out in the front yard and the peeling paint around the trim of their front door, but everything else about their house was in good condition. His mother worked a lot, but she did so in order to keep a nice, tidy home. Shouyou was grateful each and every day he saw her drive off to her job.

“This is a nice house,” Kageyama said, walking the bike up to the garage. Shouyou scratched at the back of his neck.

“Thanks,” he replied, unlocking the door so everyone could head inside. Natsu and Maiko rushed upstairs immediately to play, leaving Kageyama and Shouyou alone.

Suddenly, Shouyou remembered everything everyone at practice had to say about their plans. His face felt hot. He didn’t want to make out with Kageyama. He certainly hoped that’s not what the other boy expected them to do; Shouyou just wanted to hang out as friends. He wasn’t ready for… kissing. Especially not with someone as irritating as Kageyama.

“Um… so what do we do now?” Shouyou asked, rubbing his cheeks like he could get rid of his blush.

Kageyama shrugged. “I dunno.”

Shouyou tried not to groan. Vague answers were the worst. If anything, now Shouyou had fewer ideas for what to do than before. He ran a hand through his hair. “Want to watch the Olympic qualifiers for volleyball? The United States are playing Italy today.”

Kageyama shrugged again. “Sure, I guess.”

“Okay,” Shouyou replied awkwardly. He shuffled into the living room –feeling weirder than usual- and hooked up the television to stream the game from his computer. When he turned around, Kageyama was nestled into the corner of the couch. The arm of the sofa looked like it was uncomfortably digging into the other boy’s side, and he had situated the pillows to keep Hinata from sitting anywhere near him.

Shouyou sat normally on the opposite side of the couch, kicking his feet a little bit. They went from snuggling the whole bike ride here to sitting as far away as humanly possible.

Shouyou didn’t know what happened, but it was weird. Like… really weird. Everything with Kageyama had been so weird lately. Shouyou was starting to regret ever asking him over.

The game was interesting, but Shouyou was overly conscious of just how far away they were sitting. What would be more awkward: his mom walking in on them sitting miles apart or his mom walking in on them sitting right next to each other? Because either way, it implied all the wrong things, and Shouyou was sweating just thinking about it.

They weren’t even talking for crying out loud. Usually, Shouyou yelled at the TV and criticized the players, but every word seemed to die in his throat when he tried to open his mouth.

The silence started to make him anxious. Shouyou frowned when his head whipped to the side for the twelfth time in a row and his nose scrunched over and over. Why was Kageyama even here? Shouyou was so unattractive with his tics; Tourette’s was so ugly. This was never supposed to be a date, but for some reason, the fact that it wasn’t made him upset.

Vocal tics soon joined his motor ones, and he winced when he started making hiccupping noises. The high-pitched sound traveled through the house, and Natsu knowingly came downstairs a few minutes after they started.

“Hey, Nii-chan! Wanna play cards with Maiko with me? Let’s turn the TV off!” she suggested, knowing full well what kinds of activities Shouyou was supposed to do when his Tourette’s got the best of him like this.

Shouyou looked to Kageyama hopefully. He wasn’t surprised to find Kageyama already staring at him. “Would that be okay?” he asked. The game wasn’t over, but Shouyou didn’t care about either of the teams very much. He squeaked a few more times. “It’s supposed to be good for me to do quiet activities in a stress free environment.”

“Then yes,” Kageyama agreed, getting up to turn off the game before Shouyou could even move.

Natsu and Maiko pulled the coffee table closer to the couch so Shouyou wouldn’t have to lean forward or get up to play. Kageyama moved to go back to his original spot on the couch but Maiko took his seat before he could. Shouyou patted the cushion next to him, and Kageyama sat down slowly while Natsu passed out cards.

“Let’s play Crazy Eights, okay?” she said, giving everyone eight cards. She sat herself on the floor on the other side of the coffee table. “Also, Shou-chan likes blankets. Tobio, help him,” she demanded before flinging a throw blanket at Kageyama with a surprising amount of force for someone so small.

Maiko snorted when Kageyama flinched. “At least you caught it,” she said. Shouyou blinked at her a few times. He wasn’t sure how he felt about Natsu hanging out with someone so sassy.

Kageyama held up the blanket. “What do I do with this?” he asked, his cards still lying face down on the table.

Natsu arched an eyebrow at him. “Put it on him,” she said, pointing at Shouyou. Kageyama arched an eyebrow right back at her. Natsu glared at him and pointed again, this time more forcibly. Kageyama’s eyes widened in surprise –maybe even in fear- and if Shouyou wasn’t so embarrassed, he would have laughed.

Kageyama moved to place the blanket on Shouyou’s lap, but Natsu tsked disapprovingly. Kageyama winced and lifted the blanket a bit higher, holding it out as if to wrap it around Shouyou’s shoulders. His hands hovered in midair as he looked to Natsu for approval. After a nod from the younger girl, he carefully wrapped Shouyou up in the fluffy purple fabric.

“You don’t have to look so grumpy about it,” Shouyou said, acknowledging Kageyama’s frown.

“I don’t look grumpy,” Kageyama snapped. Shouyou and Maiko both rolled their eyes.

“You’re a great big frownie face,” Maiko replied, pulling her mouth into a big, exaggerated frown and crossing her eyes. Kageyama crossed his arms angrily over his chest, and Shouyou laughed. He wrapped the blanket a little more tightly around himself, feeling his tics settle. Sometimes being in a small, warm space helped Shouyou relax.

Natsu clapped her hands to get all of them to focus. “I’m starting!” she said, flipping over a card from the pile in the middle. She sat up on her knees excitedly when she read the card: a queen of hearts. “I have tons of hearts!” she yelped, excited. She picked up her hand clumsily. Shouyou laughed as she struggled to hold her deck, showing off all of her cards accidentally.

Eventually, Natsu managed to pick out an eight of hearts without dropping everything. Maiko took her turn, and Kageyama smirked when he managed to match Maiko’s seven of hearts with a seven of spades.

“Ugh, you’re that kind of player,” Shouyou groaned, putting down a two of spades.

Kageyama frowned at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, organizing his hand so Shouyou couldn’t see.

“You’re the kind of guy who has to match things by number instead of shape and shake things up,” Shouyou replied, smiling behind his hand. The house was quiet as they played cards, and the lights were dim as the sun started to lower. It was calming to not be so over stimulated. He was much more comfortable hanging out with Kageyama like this.

“Nii-chan, you sound better,” Natsu commented as she put down an ace.

Kageyama shifted beside him. “She’s right, you’re not squeaking anymore,” he noted. Normally, when people said things like that to Shouyou, it came off as degrading. However, Kageyama only sounded concerned.

Shouyou tried not to feel too touched.

“Yeah,” he agreed, not sure what to say on the matter. “I dunno, it’s good when things are quiet and easy.” Kageyama had told him to tell him how he was feeling. He didn’t know if that included talking about how certain things made him feel, but he figured educating other people about what was good for his Tourette’s couldn’t ever be a bad thing. Life was easier for Shouyou when the people around him were informed.

“Cards, and puzzles, and board games are good!” Natsu added on. “Video games and TV and homework are bad.”

Shouyou flushed. “Natsu knows the list pretty well at this point,” he said, starting to feel awkward again for some reason. However, whatever anxiety he had melted away when Kageyama spoke up.

“I’ll know it, too,” he promised. He turned to Natsu, leaning in towards her. “What else helps?” he asked.

Natsu brightened and immediately launched into a long list of things she knew to be helpful for her brother. “Oh, lots of things!” she said, “like petting cats, and playing with dogs, and going on walks when it’s quiet outside, like during the evening or the morning, and sometimes riding his bike, and reading books, and coloring…” The list went on and on.

Shouyou was surprised. Not even he kept track of the things that helped him to calm down. The fact that Natsu paid attention to him so well and knew so many ways to make him relax was difficult to believe. But here she was listing them off, while Kageyama listened intently.

Shouyou eventually had to cut in. “Okay, that’s enough, I don’t think Kageyama’s going to remember all of this,” he said.

“Oh, I will,” Kageyama said, puffing out his chest haughtily, and Shouyou smacked him on the back of the head.

“You can’t even remember your times tables,” he joked. He giggled when Kageyama rubbed the spot Shouyou hit him. He looked stricken for all of two seconds before going right back to looking annoyed.

Kageyama’s eyes narrowed at him. “And you yell at me for being mean.”

“Eh-hem.” Maiko cleared her throat to get everyone’s attention. She dropped an eight onto the discard pile in the center of the table. “Read it and weep, boys. I’m switching this thing to diamonds.”

Kageyama groaned and started picking up cards to find a diamond. “You guys both look exactly the same when you’re acting smug,” Kageyama said, gesturing between Natsu and Shouyou. Shouyou locked eyes with his younger sibling, and their smiles wavered before they broke into laughter. Kageyama’s frown only deepened as he kept picking up cards to the sound of their giggles.

All too soon, the game was over and it was time for Kageyama to go home. His father would be stopping by Shouyou’s house any minute to pick up his son. Shouyou walked him outside while Maiko ran around the house, screaming about her Crazy Eights victory.

“I can’t believe we lost to a six-year-old,” Shouyou laughed.

Kageyama snorted. “Yeah, we’re idiots.” There was a long pause where neither Kageyama nor Shouyou said anything, both standing outside in the chilly spring air without their jackets on. Shouyou opened his mouth to say something, but Kageyama beat him to it. “I promised I would tell you how I feel, so… so just so you know, I had a nice time at your house. It wasn’t… completely awful.”

Shouyou grinned. “So it was just sort of awful?” he asked, although he knew fully well what Kageyama meant.

He laughed at the other boy scrambled for words. “No, I mean… It wasn’t… I mean…” Kageyama looked up when he noticed Shouyou was laughing. “You’re just making fun of me,” he realized.

“Maybe just a little bit,” Shouyou admitted. He scratched the back of his neck. “But I promised to tell you how I feel, too, and… and I liked having you over. You’re welcome back any time,” he promised.

Headlights fell on them as Kageyama’s father drove up the street. Kageyama winced. “That’s my ride,” he said. Shouyou nodded. Kageyama made his way towards his car, but he stopped and turned around halfway through Shouyou’s yard. “Maybe we can hang out again this weekend?” he asked hopefully.

Shouyou smiled. “We can definitely do that,” he promised.

Kageyama didn’t smile back, but he looked happy by his own weird, angry standards. “Cool,” he said nodding. Shouyou watched as he climbed into his father’s car and drove away. Shouyou stayed outside until the little Toyota disappeared from view.

(Wednesday at 9:42am) From: Kenma Kozume
So we’re not facing each other at Nationals
At least not this season.

(Wednesday at 9:47) From: Hinata Shouyou
You guys lost?! D:
That is so sad ):

(Wednesday at 9:48) From: Kenma Kozume
Yeah, but it’s no big deal. At least not for me, I don’t really care about winning.
I heard you guys lost to Aoba Johsai.
You holding up okay?

(Wednesday at 9:50) From: Hinata Shouyou
I mean… Yes?
But also no.
Like, I know that it’s not my fault, I know that. This whole season I feel like all we talked about was how to be a team, you know?
But also everyone else at Karasuno is practically a genius.
And then there’s me.
You know?

(Wednesday at 9:51) From: Kenma Kozume
No, I don’t know.
Shouyou, you have a ridiculous amount of athleticism in your stupidly small body.

(Wednesday at 9:52) From: Hinata Shouyou
I guess it is sort of stupidly small, isn’t it.

(Wednesday at 9:52) From: Kenma Kozume
No, that’s not the part you were supposed to take away from that.
Listen, you’re great, Hinata, you know that.
You know your jump is crazy and your reflexes are ridiculous
At the very least, you know that you have the most determination out of everyone on the team.

(Wednesday at 9:53) From: Hinata Shouyou
I mean… MAYBE I know that
But it still doesn’t FEEL like it

(Wednesday at 9:56) From: Kenma Kozume
Fair enough.

(Wednesday at 9:59) From: Hinata Shouyou
Sorry, I’ve been a stick in the mud lately.

(Wednesday at 10:01) From: Kenma Kozume
Dude, don’t be sorry. After everything I’ve put on you, it’s about time I got to reassure you for a change ;)

It takes about a week, but eventually everyone stops pestering Shouyou about having Kageyama over. Had the questioning gone on any longer, Shouyou wouldn’t have hesitated to rip out everyone’s throats. Even if it had been a date, like everyone was implying, then they were ruining them ever having another one because dealing with everyone’s questions was so annoying.

Shouyou was tired of feeling worked up about it, though. Instead, he focused on cramming down his morning bento before school started. He crammed a piece of tamagoyaki into his mouth, whole.

“I don’t know whether to be disgusted or impressed by how much you can force into your mouth at once,” Tanaka said, nose wrinkled so much that his eyebrows wrinkled with it.

“Be impressed,” Shouyou said, still chewing. He hopped a few times in his seat. Unfortunately, he tried to swallow at the same time, and Tanaka had to smack him on the back when he started choking.

“Hinata are you dying?” Nishinoya called out from the other side of the courtyard. He was sitting with Kageyama. Lately, Noya had been putting a lot of effort into making sure Kageyama didn’t sneak off to sit on his own anymore. It seemed to be good for him. Its not like Shouyou was the authority on reading Kageyama, but he did seem happier when Noya was sitting with him than why he was by himself.

“Yes,” he croaked, and Tanaka whacked him one more time for good measure. Shouyou turned to glare at him, but before he could be angry, Tanaka offered him a sip of his water.

“Who’s a good senpai?” he asked, while Shouyou took a long sip.

“You’re a good senpai,” Shouyou promised. Tanaka laughed heartily.

“Say it again!”

“You’re a good senpai! Thank you so much for taking care of me,” Shouyou said very seriously, making Tanaka laugh loudly all over again. He always got overly excited when the first years recognized his seniority. As long as he continued to treat him well, Shouyou was happy to indulge him.

“Quit saying that kind of crap, it’s going to go to his head,” Noya complained, dragging Kageyama by the arm to sit closer to Tanaka and Shouyou. Kageyama didn’t look happy to be pulled over, but he wasn’t exactly kicking and screaming, either.

Tears shone in Tanaka’s eyes. “Why can’t you just be happy for me, Yuu,” he asked. Nishinoya stomped on his foot before taking a seat next to him.

“Because you’re being crazy today. Take a deep breath, you’re going to scare your kouhai.”

Shouyou snickered, while Kageyama sat down next to him. “Trade you my apple slices for your steamed asparagus,” he offered.

Apparently, it was Shouyou’s turn to tear up. “Yes. Yes, thank you. I always knew you loved me,” he said dramatically, happily holding out his bento box so Kageyama could steal his vegetables. He hated asparagus. Kageyama knew he would much rather eat apples –Shouyou complained to him about the lunches his mom packed him every day- so it was kind of him to remember and offer to trade.

Kageyama fumbled as he tried to take the asparagus and accidentally dropped it on the ground. He sighed. “I don’t think you know what the word ‘love’ means,” Kageyama said. He seemed distressed, but he passed Shouyou his apple slices anyway.

“We’ll share,” Shouyou said before Kageyama could pass him his entire apple. He made sure they both had the same number of slices.

“It’s good to see you two working like a team,” Nishinoya said, interrupting their moment. He spontaneously stood up. “We’ve been looking really great lately. As long as we get our grades up, there’s no way we’ll lose another tournament,” he said excitedly.

Shouyou flushed. “Ah, yeah… Sorry about the last one, by the way. I’m working really hard to do better next time.” Maybe their loss at preliminaries wasn’t entirely Shouyou’s fault, but it felt like it was.

Nishinoya karate chopped him in the ribs. “Oi, I won’t be having that,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest. Noya could go from all smiles to moody and pouty in a half a second. “I get enough of that garbage from Asahi. You can’t blame yourself when we lose as a team.”

“Right,” Shouyou replied, blinking his eyes harshly. He winced as he suddenly felt the urge to shout.

“Ah!”

Shit. His vocal tics were flaring up.

He bit his bottom lip as he tried to hold back another shout, but he inevitably failed. After about fifteen seconds of trying to keep quiet and listen to Tanaka and Nishinoya talk about how ugly some of the kids from other teams were, Shouyou inevitably let out another yelp. Soon after, a half dozen squeaking noises hit him all at once, like hiccups.

His knees hopped up and down, but all of his tics melted away when without warning Kageyama wrapped him up in his jacket. “Sorry, I don’t have a blanket,” the setter mumbled, turning back to his karaage.

Shouyou’s eyes widened much like they did when Natsu wrapped him up. His fingers gripped at the soft inner lining of Kageyama’s coat. It was just the same as his, except for much larger. He felt like a little kid playing dress up in Kageyama’s giant jacket, but it was still warm from Kageyama’s body heat, and being enveloped like this was relieving for his anxiety. He didn’t move to take it off.

“Class starts soon,” Kageyama said. “You should hurry and eat. Moving around as much as you do burns calories.”

Shouyou shook himself out of his daze and looked down at his half finished bento. He quickly stuffed the rest of his rice and omelet into his mouth. All too soon, he had to pack away his lunch and head to class. As he sat in his seat, one of his classmates –Kiku- approached his desk.

“Shouyou, is there a reason you’re wearing two jackets?” she asked. Her voice was quiet to keep from drawing attention from their classmates. Shouyou looked down and turned eight shades of red when he realized he was still wearing Kageyama’s jacket.

“Oh. No, thanks for reminding me,” he replied and quickly shrugged off the jacket. He tossed it at the back of Kageyama’s head, not feeling at all sorry when the other boy jumped in surprise. He stuck his tongue out when the setter glared at him. Next time Kageyama lent him his jacket, he had better remind him to take it off.

Shouyou groaned as his body convulsed again with another series of tics, jammed one after another. He’d been lying in bed for hours now. It was at least midnight, two hours past his bedtime. He should be sleeping, but despite having a low-key day, he couldn’t seem to quell his anxiety and his heart was beating too hard for him to fall asleep.

Not to mention, his shot nerves made his Tourette’s worse than usual. Every tic was amplified. Each time one part of his body moved, six other parts moved with it, so Shouyou’s head fell off his pillow and his blankets slid off his bed. By the time he resituated himself, his tics would act up all over again.

It was exhausting.

Shouyou already had long days. His heart rate was almost constantly increased either due to nerves or exercise. By the time he got home and muddled through his homework, he was asleep on his feet.

Shouyou rolled over in bed and stared at his desk. A mountain of books loomed over him. If he wanted to go to Tokyo with the rest of the team, he’d have to study through all of his textbooks. He wasn’t sure how he was going to pull his low test scores up to a passing grade. Everything was just too stressful.

Shouyou screamed, and he didn’t think it was a vocal tic.

Tiny feet pounded down the hallway outside his room. Natsu poked her head into his room. “Nii-chan, you’re too noisy!” she chastised before slamming the door on him.

Shouyou groaned and buried his head under a pillow until his facial tics made him feel too stifled. He kicked at his sheets. Maybe if he closed his eyes and counted sheep, he would fall asleep.

(It didn’t take long for Shouyou to realize that counting sheep was boring, and if he fell asleep counting volleyballs slamming into the Grand King’s face, then that was no one’s business but his own.)

Not getting any sleep the night before proved to be detrimental to Shouyou’s school day.

Class had been the worst. He could not sit still or be quiet at all. His teacher had learned to cope with his Tourette’s interrupting her teaching by this point, but she still had to ask him to leave the classroom three times so the other kids could focus properly.

Shouyou felt terrible for being so distracting. The guilt didn’t help his anxiety any, but his tics weren’t coming from a place of nervousness today. Not getting enough sleep had put a lot of stress on his body, and it was messing him up. He tried taking a power nap during his lunch break, but he slept too long to finish his meal, so now he was hungry, and tired, and anxious, and –apparently- he also sucked at volleyball.

“Hinata!” Daichi called as a spike flew his way.

Shouyou blinked up at it, his instincts not making him move the way they should. He was too tired to move without serious thought. Halfheartedly, he stretched his arms out to receive the ball. It landed short, however, and Shouyou hardly blinked as it hit the floor in front of him.

He missed it.

He didn’t even care that he missed it.

Of course, he missed it. Despite putting his every waking hour into volleyball, he was still awful at it. He had so much to improve on before he could take any kind of ownership over his sport. He shouldn’t be surprised when he missed a receive; it was only natural for someone as untalented as him.

“Don’t mind, don’t mind,” Asahi called out, as if sensing his anxiety. But Shouyou did mind. He wiped away a tear with the back of his hand. He wasn’t about to let himself freak out in the middle of practice again, he had to focus if he was going to get better.

A few more points, and a few more missed receives racked up on Shouyou’s shoulders. Kageyama’s eyes kept flickering towards Shouyou as he set ball after ball, but Shouyou never called for the toss. He was too exhausted. Plus, it was hard to spike when his knees were jumping for the wrong reasons and his head wouldn’t stop shaking to the side.

“Hinata!”

Another serve landed by Shouyou’s feet. He hadn’t even seen the ball coming, he was too busy blinking and flapping his arms. Tears welled up in his throat. “Damn it,” he croaked.

He hadn’t thought his tics were being fueled by anxiety, but listening to the missed ball bounce away from him made Shouyou feel like something was trying to claw his chest open. He choked a little bit, panic expanding from his core out into the tips of his fingers and toes.

“Damn it,” he repeated when he realized everyone was looking at him. He dipped his head low so no one could see the tears dripping from his cheeks. His hands twirled at his hair for a second before giving up, threading between the strands, and pulling.

Shouyou hardly felt it as one hand ripped out a fistful of hair. He just knotted his hands right back into his fringe.

“Hey, Hinata…” Tanaka said, crossing the court under the net and walking towards him. He was the first person to move. Shouyou hated how his mental breakdowns made everyone freeze; he hated how everyone else had to deal with his problems. He flinched away when Tanaka reached out to put a hand on his elbow. “Dude, come on, it’s okay. I’m your senpai, yeah? I’m supposed to help my kouhai.”

“Tanaka, now is probably not a good time,” Suga said, ducking under the net to join them. “Hinata, how about we go outside, yeah? Does that sound okay?”

“No.”

“Well, you can’t stay here,” Suga replied gently. “Everyone else is trying to play a game.”

Right. They were in the middle of a scrimmage. Shouyou played in scrimmages with the team nearly every day; he should be used to the attacks his teammates had to offer. But he couldn’t even receive a serve from Yamaguchi, who he was used to playing with all of the time.

He hid his face behind his elbows –hands still fisted in his hair- and peeked up at Suga between his arms. Guilt crashed down on him. Suga was a way better player than he was. If Shouyou had gotten out of the way and let him play during their last game –regardless of whether or not they played different positions- maybe they would have won. Maybe Suga wouldn’t have to wonder whether or not he would ever see nationals.

“Hinata?” Suga asked.

Shouyou sniffled and ducked his head back down. He choked as he tried and failed to hold back sobs. He pulled at his hair again and accidentally ripped out another fistful.

“Hinata,” Suga repeated, putting a caring hand on his shoulder. Shouyou flinched away from the touch much more violently than when Tanaka tried to reach out for him. His whole body turned with the movement, and without meaning to, Shouyou ended up stumbling towards the exit. He ran out of the gym as fast as his legs would carry him.

“Hinata? Hinata, wait up!”

The sound of sneakers pounding on pavement followed Hinata, but he wasn’t inclined to slow down and wait for anyone. He was too ashamed to look anyone in the eye. His heart was pounding in his throat; he was so nervous. He knew logically that no one as mad at him, but he felt like everyone should be, and for that reason, he kept running without looking back.

He managed to hide himself in one of the school’s stairwells for all of three minutes before Suga found him.

“Oi, there you are,” Suga said, his expression kind and welcoming. He stood holding the door open, and Kageyama slipped into the stairwell after him. Shouyou hadn’t realized he’d been listening to two sets of sneakers chase after him.

Shouyou hid his face in his knees. He didn’t want Kageyama seeing him like this. He was humiliated. For some reason, he was still trying to put up a good front when he was around Kageyama, and he didn’t want the other boy to look at him when he was messy and crying.

“You know what, Kageyama, why don’t you take care of this, huh? I don’t think the team can manage without both of their setters,” Shouyou heard Suga say. He looked up from his knees just in time to see Kageyama’s face fall.

“Just me?”

“Just you,” Suga replied, patting him on the back. He leaned in to whisper something in Kageyama’s ear, but Shouyou couldn’t make out the words. He gave up trying and instead kicked himself closer to the wall.

“Fine,” Kageyama muttered, his hands clenching into fists. Suga patted him on the back and left, while Kageyama stood completely still, frowning. Shouyou bit his lip as the door closed behind Suga. Now what?

Kageyama looked down at the floor and kicked at the tile. He didn’t look like he was about to say anything any time soon. Shouyou occupied himself with crying into his knees and incessantly twirling his hair into knots around his index finger. High pitched vocal tics escaped from his throat every couple seconds, and he had to sit back away from his knees every now and then to accommodate his more complex facial tics.

Eventually, Kageyama spoke up. “I’m going to need some direction here,” he said bitterly. “All the websites say you’re supposed to ask what panicking people need, I can’t just… I can’t just magically know. Not like Suga, anyway.”

He sounded mad: the same kind of mad he was when he was having difficulty with a particular serve or toss. The kind of mad where he obviously wanted to be better at something he was terrible at, he just didn’t know how to get there.

Shouyou sort of wanted to know how Kageyama could ever feel like he was bad at anything. He was better than Shouyou at literally everything.

“I dunno,” Shouyou said, voice stuffy from the snot and tears. His knees were slick from crying into them. “You can leave?” Kageyama didn’t seem like he wanted to be here at all, at least not without Suga.

Kageyama looked up at him. “Do you want me to leave?”

Shouyou made another squeaking noise. “No, just… You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to,” he offered.

Kageyama stared at him for a couple breaths, and Shouyou shrunk under his gaze. He realized belatedly that he was shaking. Every part of his body was trembling, and Shouyou was humiliated that Kageyama had to witness him shaking like a leaf. A sob ripped through his body.

The noise seemed to spur Kageyama into action. Within an instant, the setter was by his side, unknotting Shouyou’s fingers from his hair and trying to talk him down.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I want to stay, I do. I just… This is hard, okay?” Kageyama’s voice shook. “But I want to stay. I don’t want to leave you alone, not when you’re crying.”

Shouyou had never heard Kageyama talk so quickly. “Sorry,” he replied. He felt bad for getting Kageyama so worked up. He didn’t mean to stress him out.

“Don’t be sorry. I’m sorry. I don’t know what to do, is all. You know? I don’t have a blanket, or even a jacket, and Natsu had that long list of things to do, but it’s not like I bring puzzles or bored games to school, and it’s quiet in here, which is supposed to be good, so I don’t know why you’re crying or how to make you stop,” Kageyama explained much too quickly. He winced when Shouyou looked up at him. “Sorry, this is me saying how I’m feeling, I think. It just usually doesn’t come out this fast.”

“Nothing you ever say comes out this fast,” Shouyou said with a weak smile. He had to speak through clacking teeth. Normally, he wasn’t such a mess; not getting a good night’s sleep had really taken a toll on him.

Kageyama looked absolutely crestfallen. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Shouyou replied. He reached out and gripped onto Kageyama’s sweaty t-shirt. “Just come here.”

He pulled Kageyama down next to him so their bodies were flush, side to side. Kageyama seemed stunned for a moment, but –surprisingly- his arms wrapped around Shouyou’s shoulders without any kind of guidance. Shouyou leaned into him and tucked his head under Kageyama’s chin. “You okay?” Kageayama asked, voice tight.

Shouyou closed his eyes and breathed in deep. “No.” He opened his eyes back up, his vision fixating on Kageyama’s collarbone. “But I’m better.”

Kageyama hummed, seemingly satisfied with that. Shouyou didn’t know how he could sound so relieved when Shouyou was crying on the floor with him in an empty stairwell. His breath was still coming out in quick bursts.

Kageyama cleared his throat. “You sound like you’re dying.”

Shouyou huffed out a laugh that quickly turned into more panicked hyperventilating. “No, no, I’m just… Oh my god, Kageyama, there is so much to do, I have no idea when I’m going to fit it all in,” he explained. He reached up a hand to tangle back into his hair. Meanwhile, his other set of fingers knotted up into Kageyama’s t-shirt. “I have no idea how I’m going to pass any of my classes with my current grades, and I need to study, but I also have to make dinner, and take care of Natsu, and help my mom around the house, and play volleyball. Like, I have to get better at volleyball, I can’t keep letting the team down, not when they’ve been so supportive and understanding all this time. I really-“

“Hey,” Kageyama said, cutting him off. Shouyou paused and took a moment to acknowledge his ear pressed against Kageyama’s chest. The other boy was breathing a little too quickly, too. “You haven’t let anyone down. And there’s only 24 hours in a day, Hinata. If you can’t fit it all in, then you can’t fit it all in. That’s just what it is.”

“But what do I skip out on, then?” Shouyou asked. “Because I can’t miss out on sleep. If I miss out on sleep, then days like today happen.”

“Well then definitely sleep whenever you want, dumbass,” Kageyama said definitively, leaving no room for argument. He gently loosened Hinata’s hold on his hair again, pulling his fingers away carefully so he didn’t pull out any more hair. “You can probably skip some of the practice you do outside of, you know, actual practice. I think working so hard for so long wears you out. And I think your mom would understand if you said you needed to cut back on chores. And maybe we could make a study group for class. Yachi said she would help, remember?”

Shouyou made a strangled noise. “Yeah,” he agreed. It wasn’t what he wanted to hear –he wanted a way to fit it all in, not cut some of it out- but regardless, Shouyou felt his anxiety starting to dissipate. Ever since Kageyama had started hugging him, his tics had been practically nonexistent. If he could just stop crying, he would be ready to head back to the gym.

Kageyama pulled away from him. “Hey, maybe you should go home early today. I think you need a nap.”

“But I-“

“I’ll bike you home,” Kageyama offered. “You can hold onto my shoulders and like… close your eyes if you want.”

“But then you’ll be stuck in like… the middle of the mountains,” Shouyou pointed out. He liked the sound of having someone else pedal him home –he was exhausted- but he didn’t want to be an inconvenience. Plus, he could really use the volleyball practice if they were going to win the next tournament.

“I’ll run home to make up the lost practice time,” Kageyama replied. When Shouyou didn’t look sold, Kageyama huffed out a sigh. “Listen, I know you. And I know you wanna get back to the gym and work yourself to the point of exhaustion. But you’re already there. You need to rest, otherwise you’re going to collapse or freak out again, and that would be stupid. Don’t be stupid. Let me take you home, I offered and everything.”

Kageyama sounded exasperated, but it was exactly what Shouyou needed. He smiled feebly. “Okay,” he agreed, pulling his hand back sheepishly when he realized he was still clinging onto Kageyama’s t-shirt. He brushed his messy hair out of his eyes. Shouyou frowned. “Did I pull too much hair out?”

“Any hair is too much hair, stupid,” Kageyama frowned, “But no, just a couple strands.” When Shouyou still looked upset, Kageyama sighed. “You look good, okay? Don’t worry.”

Shouyou’s eyes widened in surprise as Kageyama stood up. He let the other boy help him up when Kageyama extended his hand. He didn’t let go of it as they snuck back to the clubroom and left without telling goodbye to anybody. “Who are you texting?” Shouyou asked as they walked out to his bicycle.

“Daichi. Just to say that you’re okay.”

“Okay,” Shouyou agreed.

Kageyama unlocked his bike chain –he had known the combination for a while now- and once again raised the seat and the handle bars so it wouldn’t be too short. “Ready to go?” he asked.

Shouyou nodded and climbed onto the back, his short arms struggling to wrap around Kageyama’s shoulders.

When his dad was still around, he used to tell Shouyou that he’d become a man the first day he had a girl cling onto him while he drove her home on his bike. He wondered if it worked the same way if he was the one clinging, instead of the other way around.

“Hey, Hinata, you look much better!”

“Dude, you look way more rested. It’s good to see you got some sleep!”

“Don’t stay up too late, Hinata, we missed you in practice!”

Shouyou’s cheeks burned as the team greeted him the next morning, but he wasn’t upset. Yes, it was embarrassing to continually have mental health issues in front of the same group of people. However, having such an encouraging group of people around him was worth embarrassing himself with a panic attack or two each month. Besides, everyone in the gym was fully informed about his neurological disorder. They understood, even if they didn’t fully get it.

“You doing okay, Hinata?” Asahi asked while they did their morning stretches, Daichi yelling out the initial counts. Shouyou nodded.

“Yeah, I was just… really tired.”

“No need to explain. I totally understand. Once, I started crying at McDonalds with Nishinoya because they forgot to give me extra ketchup for my French fries, and it was like… too overwhelming to go ask them for more,” he explained. “I thought it was about the ketchup but, really, it was like… me just being super sleepy, I guess.”

“Asahi is a crybaby when he’s tired,” Nishinoya threw in with a wink. Shouyou snorted as Nishinoya widened his straddle to make his foot line up with Asahi’s.

“I am not!”

“You are. But it’s okay,” Nishinoya promised. “I’m great at handling a crying Asahi. It’s my calling in life.”

Shouyou laughed as he leaned further into his stretch. He wondered if one day he would have someone who felt capable when he was crying. Without thinking his eyes flickered onto Kageyama across the room.

Somehow, it was looking more and more like a possibility.

Shouyou groaned when his phone started ringing. He was just starting to understand his math homework; this was a terrible time for someone to call and distract him.

He forced himself to perk up as he answered his phone. “Moshi-moshi,” he chirped, sitting up a bit straighter in his desk.

“H-Hinata?”

“Kenma?” Shouyou answered, surprised. Kenma absolutely never called, not when a simple text would suffice. He had never said as much, but phone calls terrified Kenma if the way he avoided them at all costs was anything to go by. Shouyou stood up and closed his bedroom door, just in case. “Are you okay? What’s going on?”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Kenma was as quiet and awkward sounding as ever, but his words were panicked. “I just needed an excuse.”

“An excuse for what?” Shouyou asked, climbing up on his bed. He cradled the phone close to his ear.

“To get away.” Over the line, Hinata could hear the sound of a crowd fall away as Kenma presumably moved away from it. A door slammed closed, and the sound of a lock followed soon after. “Kuroo invited me over. But then he invited, like, forty other people over, too, and so now his living room is filled with strangers, and my mom and dad won’t be done work for another thirty minutes to come pick me up.”

“Oh,” Shouyou replied, understanding. He got more comfortable on his bed, letting his head hang off the edge. He kicked his feet up on the wall. “Where are you now?”

“In a closet.”

“In a closet?!”

Kenma sighed into the receiver. “Well, yeah. It’s the only empty place in the house, and I don’t… want to be around people.”

“That’s fair,” Shouyou agreed easily. He wasn’t about to tell Kenma he was wrong for feeling frightened. He knew just how uncomfortable being around other people made Kenma, and he also knew what it felt like to be irrationally anxious over something small. A house party to Kenma probably felt missing an easy receive to Shouyou. “What are you doing?”

“Just sitting.” There was a rustling noise. “Now I’m hiding under some coats.”

“I don’t think anyone’s going to come looking for you. You probably don’t need to hide that much.”

“You don’t know Kuroo.”

A grin curled up Shouyou’s face. “No, I guess I don’t.” He looked up at his ceiling, trying to think of something to talk about. It seemed like Kenma was desperate for a distraction. Talking about the people surrounding him would only make him more anxious; the best Shouyou could do was get him thinking about something else. “So I was thinking about your radioactive bread theory. I think there’s some major holes in your story.”

“Hinata, you suck for bringing that up right now,” Kenma replied, but Shouyou could tell by the tone of his voice that he wasn’t actually angry. Instead, he sounded… almost relieved.

“No, listen. I’ve seriously been thinking: if we’re not supposed to eat it because it’s radioactive, then why does it need infinite slices?” he asked, happy to put Kenma on the spot like this.

“Just because it’s radioactive, it doesn’t mean you’re not supposed to eat it.”

“You literally named it ‘Don’t Eat.’ That makes it sound like you’re not supposed to eat it,” Shouyou pointed out.

Kenma made a dissatisfied noise. “Well, maybe… maybe it’s radioactive properties cause superpowers, like in all the comic books. And for awhile, people were constantly eating it’s slices of bread to get all the hero stuff. But with great power comes great responsibility, and not everyone had that, so the original people on earth initially wiped themselves out by using their powers for evil. And the bread knows that, so it tells people not to eat it with it’s name: Taberuna.”

Shouyou hummed appreciatively, but immediately shot Kenma down. “Nice story, but it still doesn’t make sense. Someone else had to name the bread, and if the original humans died off, no one would be alive to know how dangerous it can be. The squid is the only way.”

Kenma scoffed. “Well tell me this: what evolutionary benefit is there to the squid breathing lava?”

Shouyou rolled his eyes. “The squid didn’t evolve. The squid has always been. And it always will be.”

Kenma laughed over the line, and Shouyou perked up with pride. It was rare that he ever got a real laugh from Kenma. He usually was so devoid of emotion, the best Shouyou could get was a half smile. To hear him laugh –especially when he was so stressed and surrounded by people- was some kind of victory. “Shouyou, you’re ridiculous.”

Shouyou’s smile faltered a bit. “Yeah, well, I’m not the one hiding in a closet.” Kenma made an unhappy noise. Shouyou could picture him nestling further under his coats, holding the phone to his ear. “Maybe we could talk to Kuroo together sometime. Like after practice camp? You guys don’t have much time left together before he goes to college, I’m sure he’d want to spend some more one on one time with you.”

Kenma took a minute to respond. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Shouyou asked. “Because I would be totally down to help you. We’ll do it together, so you can hide behind me if you need to.”

“Shouyou… You’re great. Thank you.”

“No problem!” Shouyou replied happily, sitting up and feeling the blood rush out of his head. He put a hand on the wall to steady himself. “Oh man, I just flipped right-side up and now I have a head rush.”

“Shut up, I’m trying to be grateful,” Kenma replied. “Seriously, you’re really good at, like… helping me deal with problems.”

Shouyou smiled softly, thinking back to the way Suga, Asahi, Daichi, and even Kageyama took care of him. “Yeah, well… I learned from the best,” he admitted. He threw himself into his desk chair and spun himself around a couple times. “Want me to stay on the phone until your parents pick you up? I don’t mind being your excuse for a half an hour or so.”

Shouyou could practically hear Kenma’s smile through the phone. “That would be great.”

The next time Kageyama comes over to his house, it’s much less awkward. They’re sprawled out on the couch, textbooks and homework spread out between them in an attempt to do well on their exams. Shouyou felt like he hadn’t done anything but study in weeks, even though he was still going to volleyball and taking care of Natsu every day.

Kageyama looked just as burnt out as he did. Maybe it was the exhaustion, but the other boy didn’t seem as concerned about how much space stayed between them today. Every time Kageyama leaned forward to flip one of his notebook pages, his leg brushed Shouyou’s. He kept getting closer and closer until eventually their legs were just touching without either of them having to move.

It was weirdly soothing.

Shouyou didn’t like thinking about just how soothing it was.

Every time he managed to read a page of his textbook, he would realize that he’d managed to get through it all without his head jerking to the side or his eyes blinking too long. He never lost his spot.

It was so surprising to make it through a page, that Shouyou would inevitably lose his focus and tic a few times in a row, but if he got used to this –if he got used to Kageyama’s leg touching his- then he was sure he could spend hours in this very spot without ever moving.

The only thing that ever made him feel this kind of calm was volleyball. Except for in volleyball, he was still in constant motion. Right now he was completely and totally still.

“Hey, did you do number seven yet?” Shouyou asked, scratching behind his ear with a pencil.

Kageyama looked up at him, a highlighter between his teeth. “What?” Kageyama asked, pulling out one of his ear buds. Shouyou sat up and leaned over, closing Kageyama’s textbooks for him.

“I can’t do math anymore. Will you quiz me on English? I made some flashcards yesterday.” He didn’t really have time for a break but he could at least switch subjects. Hopefully, it would keep him from distracting himself.

“Sure,” Kageyama agreed. Shouyou wasn’t surprised. He was realizing more and more that Kageyama would do just about anything he asked him to do, and then some. Whether it was a couple more tosses long after the sun went down or a few dozen flashcards when Kageyama needed to study for math, he would help.

They managed to go through all of Shouyou’s flashcards twice by the time his mom came home. “Oh, Kageyama! You’re still here! I thought your dad would have picked you up by now,” his mom said, carrying groceries through the door. Kageyama immediately stood up to help her.

“I guess it has gotten late,” he replied. He looked a little frazzled as he took bags from Shouyou’s mom. “I can text my dad to pick me up right away.”

“Nonsense, stay for dinner! You and Shou-chan looked like you were getting some good studying done,” she said. “Plus, anyone who helps bring in the groceries is more than welcome to reap the benefits.” She sent a pointed look to Shouyou who scrambled off the couch to get more bags from the car. He was halfway out the door when he heard Kageyama’s response.

“I would love to stay for dinner, thank you very much for the invitation.”

“No problem. Anything for one of Shou-chan’s friends!”

A smile lit up Shouyou’s face despite the embarrassing nickname. For some reason, Kageyama getting along with his mom made him feel warm all the way down to his toes. He had even helped her with the groceries. It felt important, even if it was something small, and Shouyou didn’t stop smiling about it until long after Kageyama went home that night.

“Make up your mind, dumbass, ramen or yakisoba?” Kageyama asked, half dragging Shouyou down the road. He knew the other boy was hungry, but he really didn’t have to be so harsh.

Shouyou stopped walking. He effectively glued his feet to the ground, refusing to move just to be ornery. “I don’t know! That’s such a stupid decision, they’re both noodles!” he complained while Kageyama pulled demandingly on his arm.

He loved arguing with Kageyama, but it did get his blood boiling. Whenever Shouyou felt temperamental, his tics seemed to increase. Anything that got his heart beating even slightly faster usually made his Tourette’s worse, even when it was something that made him feel good. Being overexcited and over stimulated was just as bad as feeling anxious or pressured.

Shouyou’s eyes blinked hard and his nose crinkled as Kageyama’s fingers squeezed onto his. “Just choose so I can eat something,” he demanded, giving his hand another tug while Shouyou’s arms flapped angrily at his sides.

“I can’t choose if you don’t let me think!” he complained, his head shaking a few times. He knew he must look ridiculous, but it wasn’t as embarrassing to tic walking around town as it was to tic in school. He didn’t have to see the people he ran into on the street again; at least not like how he had to see the same kids at school everyday.

However, at least everyone at school knew why he was ticking. Strangers had no idea why his facial movements were so unnatural or why he moved his arms and legs so much. Plus, the anonymity that came with not knowing someone’s name or story made it easier for other people to tease him more openly.

So when some boys across the street started making fun of him –pulling the same faces and moving their arms the same way- Shouyou wasn’t surprised. (He was used to this. It came with the territory.)

But Kageyama was.

“Hey,” Shouyou said, noticing Kageyama’s expression darkening. “Don’t freak out. They don’t know.” Kageyama didn’t say anything, just continued glaring at the boys across the street. They looked young, like maybe they were in elementary school still, and they hadn’t noticed Kageyama’s staring yet. They just kept flapping their arms and making silly faces. “I know you don’t think not knowing and stuff is an excuse, but they’re young kids, Kageyama, don’t do anything stupid.”

Kageyama shook their hands loose and marched across the street. Shouyou looked on in horror for a moment before scrambling to keep up with him. He had a hand on Kageyama’s arm, ready to pull him away, before Kageyama spoke.

“Were you guys making fun of my friend, here?” he asked, his voice accusing but not as… scary as Shouyou thought it would be. He pulled his hand away from Kageayama a bit, letting it hover over the other boy’s skin, just in case.

Despite being less terrifying than usual, Kageyama was still pretty menacing. One of the kids looked like he was about to burst into tears. “We’re sorry. We’re sorry, we didn’t mean to. We’re really sorry,” he apologized, while his three friends looked away sheepishly.

“It’s okay,” Kageyama replied. Shouyou blanched. He’d never known Kageyama to forgive anyone, at least not that easily. “But do you know why he moves like that? Because I think it’s important that you know.”

“Um… no,” said the smallest kid, looking up at Kageyama with big round eyes.

“Right. Well, my friend –Hinata- has something called Tourette’s. And it’s a problem with his brain that makes him make funny faces and move his arms and legs differently than you and I do.” When the kids looked confused, Kageyama continued. “You know how you guys can chose to raise your arms up and down?” he asked, demonstrating. The kids mirrored him unthinkingly. Kageyama dropped his arms. “Hinata can’t. His arms go up and down all by themselves.”

The kids’ eyes widened in understanding, and they whispered between each other. Shouyou blushed and looked down at his toes.

“That’s why it’s mean to make fun of how some people move or make faces,” Kageyama explained. “Because sometimes they can’t help it.”

“Okay… Sorry.”

“Yeah, sorry!”

“Really sorry!”

The kids each apologized before one of the taller boys grabbed two of his friends by the arm and ran off, making the little group follow him. Shouyou watched them go, astonished. “You… you didn’t yell,” he said, amazed. He could hardly believe what he just saw.

Kageyama shrugged. “You told me not to,” he said, like Shouyou could forget something like that. “Now ramen or yakisoba? Pick now because my stomach is literally eating itself.”

“Ramen,” Shouyou answered instantly. After being so great, Kageyama deserved to eat quickly, and there was a ramen shop right around the corner. He obligatorily walked alongside the other boy; although, whatever appetite he had was long forgotten.

He was so overwhelmed by how calmly Kageyama had handled the situation, he almost missed the way their hands fell back together.

“We’re 135 to 134. We need another competition,” Kageyama declared. “I can’t stand being in second place anymore.”

Shouyou smirked up at him from his spot lying in the grass. “You know, when there’s only two people playing, there’s not really a second place. There’s just winning and losing,” he pointed out haughtily. Kageyama ripped out a handful of grass and dropped it on Shouyou’s face.

“You’re annoying.”

“You’re worse.”

“If I’m actually worse, does that mean I win at being the worst?” Kageyama asked, falling back to lie beside Shouyou. “Because in that case, we’re tied.”

“Well, then, now we really need a competition,” Shouyou replied. He searched his brain for possible contests. He’d already finished his bento, but racing to finish lunch wasn’t fun anymore anyway. They could try to beat each other back to the classroom, but they’d done that at least a thousand times already.

Kageyama grunted beside him. “So I promised to tell you how I feel-“

“You know, you don’t have to say that every time you want to admit that you’re feeling something. You could just say it: your emotions. I know you have them, you can just say them,” Shouyou said, earning himself another face full of grass. He sputtered when he accidentally breathed in a few blades.

“As I was saying… I honestly feel like I’m okay with being tied. With you.”

“Excuse me?”

Kageyama made a flustered noise. “Well, I don’t know. We work well as a team, and we’re not really supposed to be in competition with each other anymore. We’re supposed to be working together,” he pointed out.

Shouyou frowned. He wasn’t wrong. And honestly, all of their usual contests had run stale. There wasn’t anything else Shouyou wanted to beat Kageyama at; at least, not when it came to things like being first to practice in the morning or tying their shoes the most effectively. If anything, it was a constant pressure that Shouyou didn’t need. Maybe getting rid of their rivalry for good would be helpful for his Tourette’s. “Can I still try and beat you at Mario Kart?”

“Video games don’t count,” Kageyama promised. “And neither do card games, or board games, or like… any of the stuff that’s good for your Tourette’s.”

Shouyou nodded. “Okay… Okay, then tied.”

“Tied?”

“Yeah,” Shouyou agreed. “For good.”

Daichi groaned as they made their eighth lap around the school grounds. “I’m the captain. I made this conditioning program. Why did I think we needed to run for so long? Endurance hardly matters in volleyball,” he complained.

Asahi patted Daichi’s shoulder consolingly. “You say that now, but wait until we’re in the third set against Aoba Johsai, and you literally feel like death warmed over,” he said. Daichi’s face crumbled like he was about to collapse into tears.

“You guys are so depressing, I could run all day,” Nishinoya said, jumping up as he ran to prove it. Shouyou followed him with a leap of his own.

“Yeah, all day!” Shouyou agreed. His energy was higher than usual. His anxiety seemed to be lower lately. With all the studying he’d been putting in, school was easier. And with Kageyama to keep him on track, he was able to get to bed earlier and fit more into his day. It was much faster to study when Kageyama’s leg or arm brushed against his and his tics stilled for a while. He got much more done when he didn’t have to read the same sentence eighteen times in a row.

“Hinata, shouldn’t you be running way in front of all of us?” Daichi asked as he started to fall behind Asahi. Karasuno’s ace smirked as –once again- he was leading the team. Instead of Hinata and Kageyama sprinting ahead, Asahi had been finishing his laps first recently. “Normally you and Kageyama are both sprinting in front of everyone.”

Shouyou shrugged. “Yeah, we’re not like… into that anymore. It’s better to save our energy for working on our quick. I’m kind of hoping to maybe sort out another one soon.”

“Not into… beating each other?” Nishinoya asked, blinking like the concept didn’t make any sense. Even Asahi fell back, running slower than usual to listen to what Hinata had to say.

“Yeah. We’re just calling it all a tie. There’s less pressure that way,” he explained.

Asahi nodded thoughtfully. “I couldn’t imagine being in constant competition. Every time Nishinoya challenges me, I just let him win to save myself the effort.”

Nishinoya blinked up at him. “Asahi, I change my mind. Ryuu is a hero. You are a jerk.”

“What’s this about me being a hero?” Tanaka asked, literally sprinting from the back of the line of runners at the sound of his name to fall in step with Nishinoya. Nishinoya smacked him on the back.

“You’re just the best. You don’t let me win. Our competitions are always real.”

Tanaka immediately got pumped up, pounding his chest a couple times. “Oh, I’ll show you competition. Race you to the finish,” he said, before pulling ahead of Nishinoya. He went from jogging to running like his life depended on it in half a second. Nishinoya let out a battle cry before running after him, leaving Asahi, Daichi, and Shouyou in the dust.

Asahi wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. It was like even watching Nishinoya and Tanaka tired him out. “See? Stressful.”

The practice matches at Tokyo were… an experience for Shouyou.

He comes out of the last set frustrated. He wants more. He and Kageyama have reached a point where they’re better than the level they’re playing at. Or at least, Kageyama is better. He is nowhere near close to reaching his potential, and it makes Shouyou so angry. He doesn’t want to be the person holding Kageyama back. He wants to fight with him, and he wants to win.

But –per usual- Kageyama is cautious. He has always been worried about Shouyou, and while he really appreciates how much Kageyama cares, it’s absolutely stifling. He can do a new quick. With practice, he can do more than this one oddball spike, he’s sure of it. If Kageyama would just listen, if he would just hear him when he says he can do it, then maybe they’d have a shot at going to nationals this season.

Shouyou was stomping around the parking lot –grumpy and refusing to get back in the car with Kageyama and Saeko until he absolutely had to- when he bumped into someone’s broad chest. “Well, look who we have here,” a voice practically purred in his ear.

Shouyou jumped back, but he might as well have thrown himself at a wall. Another body had blocked him off from behind, and Shouyou realized that he was squared in on all four sides. “Um… hello,” he said weakly, a shiver running up his spine. He was pretty sure he recognized the tall figures surrounding him as benchwarmers from the Shinzen High team, but he didn’t see their captain among them.

Shouyou’s heart started beating in his throat, and his cheeks felt warm as his tics ramped up in intensity. He fidgeted in every way his body knew how, his eyes flickering between the boys looming over him. This didn’t seem like a friendly meet up between volleyball players.

Suddenly, Shouyou realized how far he had walked away from Saeko’s car.

“Well, if no one else wants to say hi, I think I’ll just be going,” Shouyou said, trying to slip between bodies. A strong arm caught him before he could, roughly shoving him backwards.

The other boys all seemed to move at once, closing the circle more tightly around him. It was somehow fitting that a team known for synchronized attacks also moved together off of the court. “So tell us,” said a boy with dark eyes and a wide jaw. “How is it that a freak like you can pull off such a fast quick?”

Shouyou squeaked and scratched at the back of his neck. “Oh, um… It’s not that fast. I mean… Your Eikichi managed to touch one of them. It’s nothing special.” Normally, Shouyou wasn’t one to downplay what little ability he had, but now didn’t seem like the time to brag.

The tallest of his attackers smiled, some sort of threat hidden in his grin. “It’s funny how you can do something so incredible, when your head spins like a washing machine,” he mused. He clamped one meaty hand around Shouyou’s scalp, squeezing tight. Shouyou started to panic when he went to turn his head, but found he couldn’t move it at all, not when another boy grabbed his shoulders.

“You don’t understand,” he said, starting to hyperventilate. “I have to move my head, I have to… I have to…” Shouyou’s pupils dilated as his head itched to turn but couldn’t. He couldn’t focus. Every nerve burned to turn his head, but the hands on him made it impossible.

“Maybe you should be on Fukurodani’s team, huh?” the boy holding his head asked. Tears sprung into Shouyou’s eyes. “Your neck turns all the way around like an owl.”

A few of the boys snickered, but Shouyou couldn’t hear them. He was so focused on fighting the grip on him, that he couldn’t pay attention to his other senses. All he could think about was turning his head. “Please… Please…” he whimpered. Why didn’t they get it? It was a compulsion. He needed to do it; this was killing him. It hurt.

“Alright, kid, we’ll let you go.”

Shouyou made a gasping noise as the fingers loosened their grip on his head. As he twisted his neck to the side –fast enough to give himself whiplash, he needed to shake his head so badly- a fist collided with his cheek.

Where hands had been holding him still before, they disappeared to let Shouyou fall to the ground. He ended up sprawled on the concrete, tics firing off rapidly to make up for being kept still. He realized somewhere in the back of his brain that he was lying between two cars. If anyone from his team came looking for him, he doubted they would find him out here.

“Kick the shrimp while he’s down,” a voice said above him, and Shouyou wanted to throw up.

“Takeo, you’re terrifying,” someone else replied. Shouyou felt the toe of a sneaker slam into his side a few moments later.

Shit.

Volleyball players weren’t exactly known for their leg strength, but the kick to the ribs certainly hurt a lot more than the punch did. He blinked his eyes over and over; he barely managed to focus on the leg rising to kick him again, his head was turning so often. He tensed up, ready for the blow to come, but it never did.

“And what the fuck is happening here?” a familiar voice asked. Shouyou tried to see through his flashing vision.

“None of your business,” one of his assailants replied, and Shouyou whimpered, closing his eyes for good and letting his head fall against the pavement. He was too absorbed and exhausted by his tics to keep up with the conversation. He felt like he was having a seizure, he was moving so rapidly and in so many places.

“Like fuck it isn’t my business.”

Kageyama.

Shouyou picked himself off the ground the slightest bit, leaning back on his twitching elbows. “Kageyama… It’s okay, don’t…” He could tell Kageyama was about to lose it. The setter had one of the Shinzen boys by the collar, their noses almost touching. Kageyama glared down at him for a minute before turning back to the boy who had kicked Shouyou.

“Under no circumstance are you allowed to touch him,” he said, an edge to his voice that Shouyou had never heard before. “Not ever. Unless you want to talk with me.” Kageyama’s hands tightened to fists at his side so forcefully, his knuckles cracked.

Shouyou sat up a little further. “Kageyama, you’re being crazy,” he said, voice wavering. There were so many terrifying people surrounding him, even if most of the Shinzen boys had backed up since Kageyama had arrived.

“Shouyou, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Shut up,” Kageyama replied flippantly. He sounded mad. Like… genuinely mad. Shouyou wasn’t used to Kageyama yelling at him when it wasn’t just goofy complaining or meaningless teasing. It felt like it was his first week at Karasuno all over again, back when Kageyama used to yell at him just for breathing too loudly.

“Kag-“

“Shut up,” Kageyama repeated, breaking eye contact with his bully to glare at him. His harsh gaze was only on Shouyou for a second before he was back to sneering at the boy whose shirt he had clenched in his hand. Somehow, Kageyama’s face got even closer to the other kid’s. “I am never going to see you anywhere near him again,” he said, voice hard as iron and sharp as steel. Kageyama literally threw the other boy away from him. “Get the fuck out of here.”

Each of the Shinzen boys looked hesitant to walk away, pride wounded, but Kageyama was a force to be reckoned with, especially when he was mad. All four slinked off after Kageyama refused to back down from their upset glares.

Shouyou, meanwhile, picked himself up off the ground. His whole body was shaking as adrenaline coursed through his system. He hunched over, holding his stomach. His ribs hurt, and he felt like he might throw up. The side of his face ached, and his whole body was sore from being forced to suppress his tics.

He just wanted to go home.

“You didn’t have to be such a freak about it,” he mumbled as he calmed himself down. He wasn’t actually angry with Kageyama for losing his temper, but acting like he was felt easier than actually dealing with what just happened.

Kageyama visibly bristled. “You know what, Hinata? I don’t think you have any clue what I do and don’t have to do to take care of you,” he seethed. Shouyou stepped back a little. He knew Kageyama was angry with him, but he hadn’t realized he was this furious. Now wasn’t a good time to be pressing his buttons.

“Maybe let’s just forget all this and find Saeko,” Shouyou said, biting his lip. He reached out to grab Kageyama’s wrist –hoping to pull him to the car- but the other boy shook him off, his head bent so Shouyou couldn’t see his eyes.

“You have no idea,” he repeated. His shoulders were shaking almost as badly as Shouyou’s. “It’s so… It’s so difficult looking after you.”

Shouyou blinked before his face screwed up. The way Kageyama was talking made it sound like he blamed Shouyou for the bullying, like he was angry with Shouyou for burdening him. But Shouyou wasn’t about to stand for that. “Well, maybe it wouldn’t be so difficult, if you would just calm down,” he replied, thinking back to how reluctant Kageyama was to let him try anything new. “You’re so overprotective! Why can’t you just loosen up?!”

“What, and let strangers beat the living shit out of you?” Kageyama asked. “Because you actually are a dumbass if you think I’m about to let that happen.”

“Stopping someone from hurting me doesn’t mean losing your temper! You have to control your anger, idiot!”

Kageyama slammed his fist into one of the cars they were standing next to. He didn’t look at all bothered when the car’s alarm started going off. “This is me controlling my anger!” Kageyama yelled. He turned to face him, eyes wild. “If you don’t like the way I help you, then fine. Fuck this. Ride home with Saeko without me, but I can’t be with you anymore!”

Kageyama kicked the car’s tire before storming away and Shouyou watched him go, still hunched over as nausea swelled through his stomach.

Be with you?

Chapter Text

“... And like, what’s that even supposed to mean, you know? What does he mean when he says he can’t be with me?” Shouyou ranted, frustration making his fingers itch.

Apparently, yelling at Shouyou hadn’t been enough for Kageyama, because he had immediately stomped back to the gym to tell everyone what had happened. If it had been up to Shouyou, he would have never told anyone about the boys who attacked him. Getting bullied was just... a fact of life. However, Kageyama had seemingly wanted everyone to know, what with how loud he had been.

Shouyou had all but melted in embarrassment when Kageyama shouted about the ‘idiots’ who had ‘brutally attacked’ him. Kageyama had been two feet from Coach Ukai as he spoke, but he was loud enough that the Fukurodani team had all turned their heads to listen in from the other side of the gym.

It was humiliating.

If Kageyama hadn’t been so furious with him, Shouyou would have told him to be quiet, but as it was, things were too tense between them for that. Instead, he stayed quiet as Kageyama reported the incident, all without ever once looking at Shouyou. He didn’t even complain when Kageyama asked Tanaka to switch cars with him.

Shouyou had kept his mouth shut up until the moment he got into the car with Tanaka and his sister, Saeko.

“It’s like... if anything, I’m the one who can’t spend any time with him. He’s such a jerk sometimes. Whenever something frustrates him the tiniest little bit, he blames me, and all of a sudden he’s like... screaming. But sometimes it isn’t my fault! Like me getting beat up isn’t my fault!” Shouyou complained, ignoring how panicked he felt. He tried to focus on being angry instead. It was easier to deal with how mad he was at Kageyama than how scared he felt.

He shut his eyes as he thought about how terrifying it had been to be held so still. He refocused his thoughts on the way Kageyama had yelled at him. Shouyou took a deep breath. “I’m just so mad at him. I’m so mad. He’s such an asshole, sometimes. Like just when I think he’s a good guy, he does something shitty like this.”

Tanaka made a noise of acknowledgement from the backseat as he took a big bite of an Umaibo. He chewed and swallowed. “Oi, Hinata, you’re like... flipping out,” he said absentmindedly. He was more focused on his caramel-flavored snack than on what Shouyou was saying.

Shouyou looked down at his body. His arms were flapping into the center console and the car door, while his knees bounced enough to make the car shake. Saeko took her eyes off of the road to glare at him. “Yeah, all your shaking is making it hard for me to drive.”

“Everything makes it hard for you to drive,” Tanaka grumbled, earning him a face full of napkins when Saeoko threw the contents of one of her dirty cup holders at his head. Shouyou twitched unhappily in the passenger seat.

“Sorry, I’m just... frustrated,” he replied. “It’s making me antsy.”

Saeko hummed. “He really got to you good, huh?” she asked, arching an eyebrow while Shouyou unsuccessfully fought back vocal tics.

“I mean –ah!- yeah,” he answered. He spent a couple seconds making squeaking noises before speaking again, his arms knocking into the sides of the car in no particular kind of rhythm. “It’s just, like... Even when we’re together and we’re having fun, half the time it’s like he doesn’t even know how to talk to me. And when he is vocal, it’s because he’s yelling at other people and being an overprotective freak!”

Tanaka snorted. Shouyou started to turn around so he could glare at him, but the smirk on Saeko’s face caught his attention. She grinned around her lollypop stick. “Sounds like he likes you, kid,” she teased.

Shouyou groaned. “Everyone says that, but honestly, if he liked me, then he wouldn’t act this shitty!” he whined. He thought about Kageyama punching that car as he tried to reign in his temper. His knuckles had started to bruise as he talked to Ukai in the gym, matching the mark on Hinata’s cheek. Every time he caught his reflection in the window, it stared back at him: purple and ugly.

Shouyou’s breathing started to pick up as he thought about the boy who had held his head still. He tried to fight through his panic and stay angry rather than scared, but his fear was obvious as he spoke.

“Everyone else on the team talks to me like I’m a normal person, but he doesn’t. And like... it’s not totally his fault. Sometimes I think it’s just because he doesn’t know how, but... I don’t know. I’m just –ah!- so angry that –mmmmmm- he doesn’t treat me like I’m –ah! Mmmmm. Ah!- normal, I just want someone to treat me like I’m –mmmm- norm-mmmmm. Mmmmm. Mmmmm...” Shouyou stopped trying to talk.

Instead, he hummed the “Crossing Field” opening to Sword Art Online so loudly that Saeko had to open the car windows before someone’s eardrums burst.

“Hinata? Hinata, are you okay?” Tanaka asked, but Shouyou couldn’t answer. His humming became breathier and breathier as his heart rate skyrocketed. The last time he had felt this anxious, Kageyama had been there to help him calm down. The thought alone made Shouyou’s tics flare up worse than before.

“I’m... I’m...,” he stammered, trying to answer Tanaka’s question. He wasn’t okay. Tears slipped down his cheeks as he realized just how mad Kageyama was at him, and how much he wished he wasn’t.

He really didn’t want Kageyama to be mad at him.

“Yo, just take deep breaths, okay? You’re all right,” Saeko said. She smacked him on the back to punctuate her point, the car swerving as she did so. Shouyou choked. He was going to die with Saeko at the wheel and Kageyama absolutely furious with him.

Actually, everyone was furious with him. People he didn’t know –strangers- had targeted him out of everyone in that whole gym to come and attack. His Tourette’s made him such a target. Never before had anyone gone so far as to actually hurt him like that. Yes, there had been bullies in middle school, but the worst they did was call him names and throw dodge balls at him a little too hard in gym class.

This had been a whole new level, and it scared him. It felt like everything was getting worse. He had more tics than ever, his anxiety was sky high, his oldest friends went to a different school, and his best friend was furious with him for something he couldn’t help.

Shouyou choked on his tears, and his head whipped to the side a couple times. He let it happen. He was too overwhelmed to try to keep still; he just accepted the fact that there’d be extra bruises on his arms from where they kept bumping into the car. It was such a confined space, the only motor tics he had room for were his facial tics, which were in full swing as well. He cried as his nose twitched and his eyes scrunched open and closed.

“It’s going to be okay,” Tanaka promised when Shouyou didn’t stop crying.

Shouyou sobbed. “It’s not. It’s not.”

It’s not until much, much later that Shouyou realizes why he was so upset.

“Crap,” he swore out loud, sitting upright in bed. He had been tossing and turning, trying to get to sleep for the better part of an hour to no avail. He startled upright when he figured out what had been bothering him.

“Wha~?” Natsu asked sleepily. She was staring up at him from the futon she’d laid out beneath her brother’s bed. After hearing about what had happened to Shouyou in Tokyo (which had been an embarrassing conversation to have with his family, to say the least, and had been filled with tears from all parties), Natsu had demanded to sleep in his room.

Shouyou hadn’t meant to wake her up. He ducked his head sheepishly, while she scrubbed one eye and stared at him. He cleared his throat.

“I, um...” He jumped a little on his mattress and blinked his eyes. “I think I kind of want to... be with Kageyama,” he admitted through gritted teeth. The very thought of it was frustrating, but somehow, it also managed to make his heart swell up like a balloon. How could one person make him feel so angry and so weightless at the same time?

“Whaddya mean?” Natsu asked.

Shouyou groaned and his head whipped to the side. “I mean, I think I have a crush on him.”

Natsu blinked at him slowly. “Well, dummy, we all knew that,” she replied, flopping back on her pillow. She rolled over to go back to sleep and Shouyou groaned into his mattress.

There were millions of people on the planet and billions of living creatures, but out of all of them, Shouyou had to go and love Kageyama the most. Maybe he was masochistic. Maybe he was trying to punish himself. Because of all the people and all the living creatures, no one currently hated Shouyou near as much as Kageyama did.

Kouji snorted into his straw, making his milk bubble. He was laughing so hard, he had started choking, and Izumi had to smack his back a few times to keep him from dying.

Shouyou made a whining noise in the back of his throat. “Stop laughing at me, this is serious!” he exclaimed. “I think I love him.”

“Love him?” Kouji sputtered, his smile only growing. “Shou-chan... Shou-chan, oh my god, stop it, this is too much,” he snickered. He pounded the table with his fist as he laughed. Several other customers in the restaurant turned to stare at him, and Shouyou figured that this is what secondhand embarrassment must feel like.

“Shouyou...” Even Izumi was having a hard time keeping a straight face. “It’s not that you liking Kageyama is funny or anything, it’s just that... Well, we’ve been telling you for months that he likes you, too, so I don’t understand what the problem is,” he explained.

Shouyou slumped in his chair. “You didn’t see his face after everything...” He felt the bruise on his cheek and frowned. “It’s like... he was more disgusted with me than the people who like... beat me up, you know?”

“I’m sure that’s not true,” Izumi replied, elbowing Kouji in the side to make him shut up. Kouji had the decency to look somewhat ashamed as he calmed down.

“Dude, I’ll be the first to remind you, that the kid has... misguided emotions,” Kouji said once he had stopped laughing.

“Mainly anger,” Izumi tacked on.

“Right. And honestly, if I’d seen someone beat you up, I’d be yelling at everyone,” Kouji continued. Counting people off on his fingers, he started listing. “Old ladies, old men, dogs, cats, my mom, your mom...”

Izumi picked up where Kouji left off. “Teachers, janitors, mice, people on TV...”

“People on the radio, police officers, my own father,” Kouji continued.

“Airplanes, bus drivers, babies-“

“All right, all right, I get it!” Shouyou snapped. “Everyone is weird and overprotective, and Kageyama is the worst, I understand. But that doesn’t make it excusable! He practically blamed me, like I’m the one who gave myself my own black eye, and yet here I am, all screwy, because I have this stupid, gigantic crush on him. That’s clearly a problem. Like a huge, nasty, ugly problem,” he complained.

Customers started staring at their table for entirely different reasons as Shouyou’s arms flapped by his side. Kouji looked at him for all of two seconds before busting out laughing all over again. “S-sorry, I just... I just...” He couldn’t finish through his giggles, and Shouyou kicked his shin under the table.

“Ow, that was my leg,” Izumi moaned. He pouted for a second before finally taking the situation seriously. “Listen, no one’s saying your wrong for being upset. Honestly? I’m mad at Kageyama, too. I can’t imagine how scared and hurt you must have been feeling, and to get yelled at on top of everything else must have felt awful,” he sympathized.

Kouji nodded, his cheeks flushed from laughing. “Yeah, that was a dick move.”

“If you guys think that, then why do you think it’s okay that I like him?” Shouyou asked. He picked at his crepe. The conversation had made him lose his appetite.

Izumi sighed. He sounded exhausted, like he had just finished a marathon and Shouyou had asked him to run a couple more laps. “I mean, come on, Shouyou, he’s an idiot, but he’s not a bad guy.”

“He yells at people,” Shouyou argued.

“Shouyou, I don’t even know him, but I know he only yells when he’s worried about you or when someone’s hurting your feelings. And anyways, that’s not the only thing he ever does, is it? Wasn’t it just the other week that he helped your mom with the groceries and snuggled with you on the couch?”

Shouyou dipped his head down, his nose almost landing in his whipped cream. “We weren’t snuggling,” he muttered.

Kouji tutted. “Nuh-uh, you can’t fool us. You told me all about how he had his leg against yours, and how it helped you stay calm enough to read... It was disgusting, but it was also kind of sweet.”

“It’s was overwhelmingly sweet. The kind of thing fairy tales are made up of,” Izumi agreed happily, stirring his milkshake as if he didn’t have a care in the world. Shouyou tried not to feel bitter about how calm his friends seemed in the wake of his crisis.

“Frankly, I vote Shou-chan in as the next Disney princess,” Kouji quipped.

Izumi snorted. “No doubt it would sell.”

“Right. Love story of the century: me and Kageyama,” Shouyou said weakly, blinking harder and more often than he was used to. Honestly, the idea made his head spin. He and Kageyama had practically been attached at the hip ever since the last tournament, but even thinking about becoming a proper couple made him feel lightheaded.

Kageyama was great. He was nice to Natsu, and he was courteous to his mother. He was helpful in class, and he was there after panic attacks. He had memorized and researched just about everything that could help Shouyou with his Tourette’s. Also, most importantly, he tossed to Shouyou every time he called for it.

Truthfully, even he could admit that Kageyama was perfect for him.

However, Shouyou was far from perfect for Kageyama. He was short, and twitchy, and admittedly annoying. He genuinely couldn’t stop himself from shouting, and he embarrassed himself by having anxiety attacks on a near weekly basis.

“Maybe you and Kageyama can go on a double date with Kouji and Kohaku,” Izumi snickered.

Kouji immediately started complaining –“It was elementary school! Stop bringing that up!”- but it fell on deaf ears. Shouyou sadly ate whipped cream off his crepe, embarrassment staining his cheeks pink. He was too undeserving to have a crush; he was only wasting his own time.

“Mom?” Shouyou asked, ducking his head into his mother’s bedroom. She was sprawled out in her bed after a long day at work. The house phone was lying by her side. Shouyou had heard her making calls earlier, talking to the principals at both Karasuno and Shinzen High to try to sort everything out.

He couldn’t remember the last time he had heard his mother sound so angry. Everyone was so worked up about what had happened in that stupid parking lot; everyone was turning it into a big deal. But Shouyou didn’t want to talk about it anymore.

It was humiliating that he had been beaten up. He knew he was different and that his body didn’t work right, but it was another thing entirely for someone to hurt him because of it. He had never felt so worthless, and now everyone was talking about how pathetic he was.

Everyone was so angry, and Shouyou couldn’t help but feel responsible. Even Kageyama was mad at him, which was the absolute worst because Shouyou couldn’t remember a time he ever needed Kageyama more.

“What is it, Shouyou?” his mother asked, cracking an eye open to look at him. He took a deep breath.

“It’s just... Well, do you think I could stay home from school again tomorrow?”

His mom opened both eyes and looked at him warily. Shouyou shrunk under her stare, turning the bruised side of his face away from her. He hated how worried she was. She already had so much to deal with, being a single mother. He didn’t want to put her through any unnecessary stress. “Are you really feeling that shaken?” she asked, concern evident in her tone.

Shouyou hummed for a little bit in response, unable to help himself. His mother cooed as his tics only seemed to increase along with his growing anxiety, and she beckoned him over.

“Shouyou, there’s no reason to be scared. The kids at Karasuno like you,” she said, letting him sit next to her on the bed. She rubbed his bouncing knee.

“Ah! That’s not true!” he said, louder than he meant to. He wished he could control his volume better when he was like this.

“What do you mean?”

Shouyou hummed again, his nose crinkling and his eyes blinking. “I have the team, but... but no one in my classes. No one likes me. Everyone thinks I’m loud, and annoying, and awful, and weird, and-“

“Oh, sweetheart, I’m sure they don’t think that,” his mother interrupted. It was probably for the best that she cut him off, Shouyou was only working himself up by talking.

“How can you say that, when- when- when-“

He couldn’t get out the words, but he didn’t need to. His mom frowned and ran her fingers over his bruised cheek, obviously thinking the same thing he was thinking. It was hard to feel good about himself when someone had just beat him up for his Tourette’s, and it was equally hard to think that other people might like him despite his disorder.

“Shouyou, honey, it was a bunch of stupid, stupid boys. They were just jealous that you’re a first year starter, while they’re third year bench warmers,” his mom said, trying to reassure him. However, Shouyou wasn’t having it.

“But that’s not just it, is it?” he asked. “Because if that was it, then they would have been mad at Tsukki or Kageyama, but they weren’t, they were mad at me,” he pointed out, struggling to hold back tears. His mom looked at him sadly, and Shouyou knew he was right.

He was used to being targeted for his Tourette’s, but not like this.

His mom ran a caring hand through his hair. “So you wanna stay home from school tomorrow, huh?” she asked, unable to argue with him. Shouyou nodded his head, biting his bottom lip. His mother sighed. “Okay. That sounds okay with me, I think you need a bit of a break.”

Shouyou nodded, and hid his face in his mom’s pillow. He wasn’t ready to face school, not when he was this nervous. A little rest would do him good.

Daichi spotted him the second he poked his head into the gym.

“Hinata!” Daichi exclaimed, somehow spotting him from the other side of the room. “Great! I was hoping I would get to speak with you soon. Do you have a minute to talk before practice?”

Shouyou flinched and looked down at his toes. “Um... Sure,” he replied.

For the past few days, he’d been in hiding. His mom understood that a nervous Shouyou couldn’t make it through a school day, and she let him stay home as long as he needed, knowing he would be too twitchy and panicky to sit still in class.

Sometimes mental health days were just as important as sick days, and Shouyou had used all of his avoiding Kageyama and hanging out with Kouji and Izumi after school. However, he could only take a break for so long before he would end up drowning in makeup work. If he missed any more class, then there would be absolutely no hope for his grades.

Hence, he finally decided to show his face at school. He wasn’t at all ready to see Kageyama, but fortunately, he didn’t seem to be here yet.

The only person he had to deal with was Daichi.

“Let’s go take a walk,” Daichi suggested. Shouyou took a shaky breath. Being one on one with Daichi tended to make him feel stressed, but at least he wouldn’t have to deal with their conversation echoing around the gym.

“So...” Shouyou trailed off, hoping Daichi would take over the conversation. The less he had to talk about what happened, the better.

“So I talked with Shinzen’s captain, Daiki Ogano,” he began. “Apparently, Shinzen used to have really strict rules about seniority, and only third years were allowed to play as starters, but they stopped doing that this year when they realized they hadn’t gone to nationals in over a decade.”

“Okay,” Shouyou squeaked, not sure why Daichi was telling him this.

“Daiki says that some of his third years were frustrated about not being able to play. They thought it was the oldest players’ right to be on the court, they didn’t care about skill level, and that tensions had been rising about it back in their home gym all year,” he explained. “Unfortunately, they decided to take their frustrations out on you.”

Shouyou squeaked a couple times. “Right,” he said, rubbing his nose. He hated these high-pitched nasal sounds the most. He squeaked again. “Because I’m an easy target.”

“No,” Daichi said, stopping them as they turned a corner. He put a hand on Shouyou’s shoulder. “Hinata, you are short, and you’re twitchy.”

“Thanks.”

“No, no,” Daichi said, paling a little bit before putting on his serious, captain face. “You might be small, and you might have Tourette’s, but you are strong. Both on and off the court, you fight battles that most people would shy away from. You are determined, you are brave, and you are capable. Those guys... They’re expelled from club activities for the rest of their high school careers. They’re never going to stand on the court, like you. They’re never going to fly like you. There might be a lot of tall obstacles in your way, Hinata, but I have no doubt in my mind that you’re going to come out on top.”

Daichi dropped his hand as soon as his speech ended, and Shouyou looked up at him, eyes shining. “Captain...” he said in awe.

Daichi’s hands tightened into fists by his sides. “I don’t want you to get discouraged by this, okay? I want you to keep making me proud.”

Shouyou gasped a bit, overwhelmed. He clamped one hand over his mouth and brought the other to his heart in shock. “Th-Thank you. I’m- I’m-“

Shouyou didn’t bother to try to finish the end of the sentence before throwing himself at Daichi. He squeezed the older boy into the tightest hug he could manage. There weren’t a lot of male role models in Shouyou’s life, but he certainly aspired to be like his captain when he was older. To hear that someone he respected so much was proud of him... It meant everything.

“All right, all right. That’s enough,” Daichi said when Shouyou hugged him for a little too long. “I just wanted you to know that I thought you were doing well,” he said. He looked contemplative for a moment before crossing his arms over his chest. “Although, don’t think that means you won’t have any consequences for missing so much practice. You owe me some extra laps during warm up today.”

Shouyou’s hand practically flew to his face in a salute to his captain. “Yes, sir! No problem!” he agreed, ready and able for some extra conditioning. He was more than well rested after spending so much time at home, and he was ready to use up some of his excess energy.

“Great. You can get started once we get back.”

Shouyou and Daichi retraced their steps to the gym, talking about how Shouyou could improve on his receives. They put on their sneakers side by side. While Shouyou had been nervous at first to talk to Daichi one on one, he was absolutely thrilled to have his captain’s undivided attention.

All too soon, he was running laps before practice officially started. His cheeks were already flushed from exertion, but he still managed to blush when Kageyama entered the gym to start doing stretches.

It was the first time Shouyou had seen him since Kageyama had yelled at him. It was also the first time he saw Kageyama since realizing that he liked him.

Looking at Kageyama reminded him of two things. First, Kageyama was... Well, he was really pretty. Like, unspeakably pretty. Shouyou didn’t know how he had managed to stay friends with him for so long without realizing how pretty he was. Kageyama was so tall, and his eyes were so big and blue. His haircut was stupid, but Shouyou liked it anyway, so much so that it felt like his heart was about to beat out of his chest.

Which brought him to the second thing: Kageyama was mad at him. Usually, the other boy would at least say hello to him first thing in the morning, but apparently he was giving him the silent treatment again.

Shouyou ducked his head down and focused on running.

Shouyou ran and leapt at the net, feet leaving the ground as he called for a toss. “Kageyama!”

The toss was in front of him before he even got out the first syllable of Kageyama’s name. His palm connected with the ball –almost as if they were magnetized together- and it slammed through Tsukishima’s fingertips not even a half second later, bouncing off the ground and rolling to the other side of the gym.

Shouyou landed, but his feet only touched the ground for a brief second before he was bouncing up and down in excitement. “Yes! That must have been my strongest spike ever! Kageyama-kun, did you see-“

Shouyou cut himself off when he realized Kageyama wasn’t even looking at him.

The last time he and Kageyama were at odds, the other boy refused to toss to him or look at him. This time was different. Kageyama stared at him all the time, and he sent him nearly every other toss. It was so easy for Shouyou to forget how angry the other boy was with him.

It took moments like this -where Kageyama didn’t share in his excitement, much less make eye contact- that reminded Shouyou how damaged their relationship currently was. It managed to suck the fun right out of volleyball, which Shouyou had thought was impossible up until now.

Their practice scrimmage continued until the end of practice. Daichi and Suga saddled up next to Hinata to do their cool down stretches. Normally, Kageyama would be with him, but instead, he was stretching with Nishinoya and Tanaka. At least Nishinoya was holding true to his promise and spending more time with Kageyama. He certainly needed more friends if he was going to be angry with Shouyou like this.

“They’re certainly getting friendly over there,” Shouyou said snidely. He didn’t bother to hide the envy in his voice, not when Nishinoya, Tanaka, and Kageyama were all talking about something together without him.

Suga snorted, a wicked grin taking over his face. “Is someone jealous?” he asked, elbowing him in the ribs.

Shouyou frowned. “No, just...” He winced as Nishinoya ruffled Kageyama’s hair. Ugh. Kageyama’s haircut really was so dumb, but Shouyou was still upset that he wasn’t the one who got to run his fingers through it. “...Well, actually, okay, maybe.”

“He’ll apologize soon enough, I’m sure,” Daichi said reassuringly.

Shouyou sighed. Kageyama seemed pretty content to talk to Tanaka and Nishinoya, and they had just proven that they didn’t need to be on proper speaking terms to win a scrimmage. It was starting to look like Kageyama didn’t need Shouyou very much. “You know?” he said, smiling weakly. “I kind of doubt that. I think... I think he’s probably better off without me.”

“What? Why would you say that?” Suga asked. A frown appeared on his usually sunny face. Shouyou grimaced.

“Um, I dunno... Just a feeling.”

Suga’s frown only deepened. “Hinata... You and Kageyama work best as a team. And you know just as well as I do how important a setter’s relationship with their spiker is, yeah? Kageyama wouldn’t give that up,” he assured.

Shouyou took a long swig of his water bottle, looking back towards the nets Tsukishima and Yamaguchi were already taking down. “I mean... I guess,” he said wistfully. But honestly, he wasn’t so sure.

Shouyou took a deep breath and walked up to Kageyama. “Hey, I know you’re working on that new toss, and I’m okay with swiping at mid-air as many times as you need me to before we get the timing right, but it would be helpful if you could just toss a little lower-“

“I know where you need your tosses, idiot,” Kageyama snapped.

“I mean, right, but-“ Shouyou cut himself off this time when Kageyama abruptly stood up and walked away. Shouyou sighed and collapsed into the grass.

Training camp had been... weird to say the least.

For the first time, Shouyou could actually enjoy how great Kageyama looked when he was sweaty and focused. Plus, Kageyama was putting in all this effort to give him a new toss, which was... unbelievable. It was everything Shouyou wanted. Kageyama was everything Shouyou wanted.

However, it felt like he wasn’t even allowed to talk to him. When Kageyama had said he couldn’t ‘be with him’ anymore, apparently he had meant that they couldn’t be friends. Shouyou couldn’t even say two words to the other boy without him walking away. It was devastating.

Shouyou wished he could apologize and fix everything, but he hadn’t actually done anything wrong. Kageyama had been the one who started yelling. Kageyama was the one who was still mad at him for things he couldn’t control.

Everyone was convinced that things would work themselves out. His mom kept telling him to relax, Kouji and Izumi kept saying that Kageyama was head over heels for him, and Daichi and Suga seemed convinced that Kageyama would apologize eventually. However, Shouyou wasn’t so sure.

Kageyama had always hated his Tourette’s. He had yelled at Shouyou for his tics near constantly before he realized what they were, and after Shouyou told him about his disorder, he had been twice as angry. It was obvious that he hated Shouyou’s panic attacks, and he complained about the stares and rude comments Shouyou got on a daily basis.

It felt like Kageyama hated Shouyou’s Tourette’s more than Shouyou did.

The more he thought about it, the more he felt like getting bullied by those Shinzen guys was probably the last straw for Kageyama. He had said that Shouyou was too hard to deal with, too hard to take care of.

Shouyou had always felt like his Tourette’s would make it impossible to be in a real relationship. It made him so unappealing. Who would ever be interested in a guy with so little control over his body? He must look so stupid with his scrunched up nose and his blinking eyes. He knew he looked like an absolute idiot whenever his arms started flapping. He was so... so unattractive.

Shouyou’s hands tangled into the grass and he tugged a couple fistfuls from dirt. They still had three games today, but Shouyou didn’t know where he would find the energy. He was so exhausted. His tics were more frequent than usual, and the more he stressed about them, the worse they got.

When Daichi called everyone in for the next game, Shouyou barely managed to peel himself up from the ground.

He followed Kagyeama into the gym and stared at the back of his neck, his heart swelling with longing. He felt tears sting his eyes, and his nose crinkled over and over again as he worked himself up.

If he didn’t have Tourette’s, Kageyama wouldn’t be mad at him right now. If he didn’t have Tourette’s, Kageyama would never have been mad at him; they always would have gotten along. If he didn’t have Tourette’s, Shouyou wouldn’t feel so shitty all of the time.

Shouyou scrubbed his face and tried to focus on the game, but frankly, he wasn’t up to it. It was hard to work up the energy when he was feeling so awful. Plus, with Kageyama sorting out his new toss, Shouyou wasn’t confident that he’d be able to hit the ball, even if he jumped for it.

“Hinata, you seem off your game,” Asahi said between sets. He looked concerned.

In his peripheral, Shouyou saw Kageyama’s eyes flicker up to look at him. He didn’t want to think about what that meant. Kageyama had been staring at him consistently during this whole stupid fight, but Shouyou didn’t know why.

“I guess I’m just out of it,” Shouyou replied, jumping up and down without wanting to. A couple high-pitched noises erupted from the back of his throat. “I think I might be really tired.”

Asahi nodded. “I understand,” he promised, and the way Asahi was looking at him made Shouyou feel like maybe he did. After all, he knew that Asahi struggled to feel confident, and he often blamed himself for joint failures. Maybe he knew exactly how Shouyou was feeling. “Get a good night’s rest tonight, okay? And eat well at dinner,” Asahi advised.

Shouyou let out a shaky breath. “Okay.”

Asahi tilted his head to the side, his eyes going down to Shouyou’s jumping feet. “Are you sure you’re all right?” he asked, double-checking. Shouyou felt like melting in the floor.

No, I’m not all right. My body hates me, and Kageyama does, too.

“I’m fine,” Shouyou squeaked.

“Okay, everyone, I’m going to turn the lights out in a minute. We have another early morning tomorrow!” Suga chimed, somehow still cheerful this late at night.

There was a lot of groaning after his announcement –mainly from Tanaka and Nishinoya- but Suga was quick to whip a pillow at them, and the complaints stopped when it hit Nishinoya so hard that he toppled back onto his futon.

Normally, Shouyou would laugh at something like that, but he was too overwhelmed right now.

He had been so excited for training camp, but Kageyama being mad at him was making him so anxious and upset. It didn’t help that he had to sleep next to the other boy. He had spent every night so far staring at the back of the Kageyama’s neck and his ugly haircut, wishing he could hold his hand and knowing he wasn’t good enough.

“Hinata, are you okay? You’re kind of in the fetal position,” Yamaguchi asked, his big eyes blinking at Shouyou.

Shouyou shied into his knees a little further. “Yeah, I’m okay,” he said quietly, curling up a little tighter. Yamaguchi frowned, but didn’t ask him any more questions about it. He just ruffled his orange hair and moved back to his futon next to Tsukki.

All day, everyone had been asking if Shouyou was all right. Everyone.

Except for Kageyama.

Shouyou was sure that Kageyama knew he wasn’t doing well. It wasn’t like Shouyou was trying to put all of his feelings on display, but his tics usually gave him away, and if there was anyone that could read all of his nose scrunches and humming, it was Kageyama.

Suga turned out the lights, and Shouyou struggled to lie down. His head kept whipping to the side and his arms wouldn’t keep straight by his sides. It was better for him to sit up straight and let his tics run their course before he tried to get to sleep.

Shouyou’s cheeks started to turn red when his tics didn’t calm down at all. If anything, they got worse. Everyone else seemed to be asleep, fortunately, but Shouyou was wide-awake as his body betrayed him. His knees started jumping, and he started making high-pitched nasal sounds.

After squeaking for the eighteenth time, Tsukishima rolled over to glare at him. “You heard Suga, right? We have an early morning tomorrow. Maybe you should go out in the hallway until you relax,” he suggested. Shouyou squeaked again, making Ennoshita groan and shove his head under his pillow even though he was sleeping on the other side of the room.

Shouyou’s blush deepened. “Okay, sorry,” he agreed, slipping out from under his covers.

He tripped out into the hallway, nearly falling on top of Tanaka on his way out the door. He couldn’t look where he was going properly when he was blinking so much. Shouyou’s breathing started to pick up as his Tourette’s got the upper hand.

He was only in the hallway for all of thirty seconds before the door to Karasuno’s shared room opened up behind him. Shouyou made a strangled noise in the back of his throat, realizing for the first time that he was crying. “Suga, I’m fine, go back to sleep,” Shouyou choked, hiding his face so the other boy couldn’t see.

“You’re not fine.”

Shouyou’s breath hitched. That definitely wasn’t Suga’s voice. He turned around to meet Kageyama’s blue eyes.

“Go back to sleep,” Shouyou squeaked, taking a step away. He used the heels of his hands to wipe away his tears. He didn’t want Kageyama to have to take care of him, especially not after the other boy had yelled at him for being hard to deal with. Plus, the last time he checked, Kageyama was mad at him.

Kageyama stared at him, his gaze calculating. Shouyou could feel himself shrinking beneath the other boy’s stares. He was so embarrassed. He didn’t want Kageyama to look at him when he was ticking like this. He wanted Kageyama to like him, not be turned off by his twitching face and flapping arms.

“Just go,” Shouyou begged when Kageyama didn’t leave. His bottom lip wobbled. “Go back to sleep, okay? You don’t even- You don’t even-“ Shouyou coughed a bit as his tears took over. He didn’t know where this panic attack came from.

You don’t even like me.

Kageyama was silent –awkwardly so- but he didn’t look mad, which was... bizarre. Shouyou was about to tell him to go away again, but before he could, Kageyama was unzipping his hoodie. “Wha~”

“Just calm down, would you?” Kageyama said. The words sounded like something he would say when he was angry, but there was no heat in his voice. If anything, he sounded... scared. Whether he was scared of Shouyou or for Shouyou, he wasn’t sure. Kageyama draped his sweatshirt over Shouyou’s shoulders and pulled him into a hug. “Stop shaking.”

“Well, I’m not trying to, Bakeyama,” Shouyou snapped. He was so strung out.

“Okay... Okay, just... Come here,” Kageyama replied, wrapping his arms more snuggly around Shouyou. One of his hands threaded through his hair, and the other wrapped around his waist.

Shouyou’s eyes widened, and he gripped onto the front of Kageyama’s t-shirt. He was surprised for about all of two seconds before all of his anxiety seemed to crash back down on him, and he ended up sobbing into Kageyama’s t-shirt.

This was so humiliating. He was so embarrassed by his stupid Tourette’s and his stupid panic attacks. He hated how little he thought of himself, and how obvious it was. Everyone knew there was something wrong with him. Shouyou just wanted to hide.

But Kageyama was holding him so delicately, and Shouyou remembered all of the reasons why he had started to like him. Kageyama was so tall, and big, and comforting. Shouyou didn’t mind feeling small when he was tucked up in the other boy’s arms like this. His heart beat painfully in his chest.

“There you go, you’re okay,” Kageyama promised as Shouyou’s loud sobs turned to quiet whimpers. Without warning, Shouyou felt his feet leave the ground as Kageyama picked him up. He clung onto the other boy like a koala. “You’re okay,” Kageyama repeated. His arms were even stronger than Shouyou thought they were. He was holding him like he didn’t weigh anything.

“C’mon, let’s get in bed, okay?”

“But I’m- I’m-“

Kageyama reached a hand up to comb through Shouyou’s hair again. “Don’t worry everyone else is asleep. And you’re tired, I can tell. It would be good for you to get a good night’s rest.”

Shouyou hated that Kageyama could tell how poorly he had been sleeping lately, especially when the reason he’d been up all night was because he’d been too busy staring at the back of Kageyama’s neck and praying for something like this.

Kageyama didn’t set him down. Instead, he carried Shouyou into the team’s room, and walked him towards their futons by stepping over all their sleeping teammates. Shouyou felt himself shaking, and he clutched onto Kageyama a little tighter. He hadn’t realized how badly he’d been trembling, but Kageyama had been right. He was quaking like a leaf.

He expected Kageyama to put him down in his own bed, but was pleasantly surprised when Kageyama tucked them both into his futon.

Shouyou stared at him, his eyes wide with confusion, but Kageyama didn’t do anything to explain himself. Their teammates were all snoring around them, and it was too quiet in the room to risk talking. Instead, he just fixed his hoodie on Shouyou’s shoulders a little better and pulled up the blankets.

His arm snaked around Shouyou’s waist.

Shouyou had been panicking for the better part of a half an hour. His throat was sore from crying, and his shoulders were beat from being so tense for so long. He didn’t know where he and Kageyama stood –if they were friends or not- but it didn’t matter. None of it mattered. The second Kageyama wrapped his arm around him, Shouyou started to drift off to sleep.

When he woke up, Kageyama had switched to Shouyou’s futon so they weren’t sleeping in the same bed, but he didn’t care. Shouyou had never felt more well rested, and when he thought back on his night, he could swear that he had felt fingertips ghost across his forehead right as he was falling asleep.

“Shouyou, you look like you’re in a better mood,” Kenma said the second he saw him, his eyes raking up and down Shouyou’s figure.

“Hm, do I?” he asked, focused on the volleyball in front of him. He was busy passing the ball to himself, receiving it over and over again. “I wonder why.”

Kenma’s eyes flickered between Hinata –who was beaming as he fooled around- and Kageyama –who was staring uncomfortably at them from across the gym. Kageyama always looked desperate when Kenma and Hinata were talking.

Kenma tilted his head to the side. A strand of blond hair fell between his eyes. “You and Kageyama are on better terms,” he realized. If Shouyou didn’t know the extent of Kenma’s apathy, he would have sworn the other boy looked excited.

“I mean... I guess,” he said, bumping the ball into the air one more time before catching it. He looked at Kenma. “We slept in the same bed for awhile last night, I think.”

“You think?”

“Well, I mean... I fell asleep first, so I don’t really know,” Shouyou replied with a shrug.

Kenma eyed him curiously. Nekoma was starting to huddle up before their practice match, but their setter didn’t head over right away. “So you guys are on speaking terms again, then?” he asked, uncertain.

Shouyou shrugged. “I dunno, actually. Maybe?”

“Shouyou.”

“Don’t worry about us,” Shouyou said, waving his hand flippantly. “Or, actually, do worry about us. We’re about to wipe the floor with you in this practice match,” he said, a mischievous smile creeping up his face. Kenma’s eyes shone –he was always quick to get competitive when Shouyou was involved- but he still looked tentative.

“It’s just-“

“Everything’s fine, Kenma,” Shouyou said, cutting him off. His arms beat his sides as a sudden rush of panic swept over him. He didn’t really want to talk about him and Kageyama. At least not right now. “Talk to you after the game, okay? You still wanna meet up with Kuroo later?”

Kenma’s nose twitched. “Sure.” And with that, he spun on his heel and walked towards the rest of his team. Meanwhile, Shouyou bounded over to Kageyama.

“Hey,” he said, testing the waters. He stood close to Kageyama, knowing that the other boy wouldn’t mind having him near.

Kageyama didn’t speak, just grunted in acknowledgement and put a heavy hand on Shouyou’s head to greet him. Shouyou beamed under his touch, while Daichi clapped his hands to get everyone’s attention. He didn’t listen to his captain’s pep talk, though. He was too busy staring up at Kageyama.

Maybe they weren’t exactly talking yet, and maybe Kageyama had yet to apologize. But things were getting better, and that was all Shouyou could ask for.

Bokuto smacked his dish down next to Shouyou’s at lunch. “Hey, hey, hey!” he said in greeting, stealing a piece of fish from Shouyou’s plate without asking.

Shouyou sat up straighter in his seat. His tics went wild for a second; he was so excited to see Bokuto. “Hi, hi, hi!” Shouyou exclaimed, sitting up on his knees to get a little taller. “What are you doing here? This is the wrong table!” he said, pointing to where Fukurodani was supposed to be sitting.

“Yes, this is the wrong table,” Akaashi chimed in, sneaking up behind them. Bokuto didn’t seem concerned. Instead, he grabbed Akaashi’s arm and abruptly pulled him down to sit on his other side, almost making Akaashi spill his rice.

“The right table is where your friends are,” Bokuto argued, and Akaashi sighed.

“Bokuto-san, the team didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.” Per usual, Akaashi looked cool as a cucumber while Bokuto looked distressed and crossed his arms over his chest. Bokuto had the most massive pout Shouyou had ever seen taking over his face.

“They said my voice is stupid!”

“Your voice is stupid,” Akaashi replied. Bokuto made an upset noise, looking positively aghast. Akaashi put his hand on the other boy’s lower back. “But I don’t mind it, so it’s okay.”

“You don’t mind it?!” Bokuto asked, clearly offended, and Shouyou decided that now would be a good time to intervene.

“So I get to be one of your friends now?” Shouyou interrupted, excited. He was practically bouncing in his chair in excitement, his lunch abandoned for the time being. It didn’t matter much anyway; he usually crammed all of his food down his throat in two seconds regardless of how much time he had to eat.

Bokuto stared at Shouyou seriously. He grabbed the other boy’s shoulder with a flourish. “Hinata, you are more than my friend,” he said, his tone somber. “You are my son.”

“Yes!” Shouyou cheered, throwing his hands in the air excitedly.

“No,” Daichi disagreed from across the table, finally paying attention to the two intruders. He leaned over to remove Bokuto’s hand from Hinata’s shoulder.

“Yes,” Bokuto argued again. He punched the table in excitement. “I have dedicated countless hours to passing on all of my knowledge -all of my skills- so Hinata can grow up to be more like me: the coolest spiker in Tokyo!” he exclaimed.

Akaashi sighed. “If by countless hours you mean two, then sure,” he said under his breath. Bokuto pretended not to hear him.

Meanwhile Shouyou put his hands over his heart. “Yes, dad!” he yelped, if only to help Bokuto feel better. He had seemed bummed out when he sat down at the table, and Shouyou wanted to help him cheer up some. “You should adopt me!”

“No,” Daichi said again. He glared at Bokuto “Go back to your own table.”

“But they’re mean to me there,” Bokuto whined, and Shouyou giggled behind his hands, forever entertained by Bokuto’s shifting moods. “And anyway, I came here for a reason. Hinata, are you going to come train with us tonight? Me and Kuroo were thinking that we could have another three on three match, if you wanted.” He looked so excited. There was no way that Shouyou could say no, not that he wanted to.

“Yeah, that sounds great. You can show me that thing with where it like... fwips and then goes woosh?” he asked, gesturing wildly.

“Yes, yes!” Bokuto said, nodding his head enthusiastically. He knew exactly what Shouyou meant, even though he was speaking in noises instead of words. “Anything for my son!”

“For the last time, no. He’s not your son,” Daichi repeated, and Shouyou could tell he was at the end of his rope. After getting to know both Bokuto and Kuroo, Shouyou couldn’t imagine what it was like to deal with such ridiculous captains for a whole week.

“Ugh! I’m having the worst day,” Bokuto groaned, throwing his hands up before collapsing on top of the table. He really didn’t handle being told no well.

Akaashi patted his back. “Bokuto-san... I’m sorry for saying that I don’t mind your voice. I actually really like it,” he promised, rubbing between his shoulder blades as he spoke.

Bokuto perked up a bit. “Really?”

“Really,” Akaashi swore. “Let’s go back to our table, okay? You can talk to Hinata-kun later, and I’ll make sure the team apologizes for teasing you.”

“You will?”

“I will, Akaashi said reassuringly, patting Bokuto’s back a few more times for good measure. After a couple more reassurances, Bokuto eventually stood up and went to join his team. Daichi watched him leave sternly.

“If you leave Karasuno for that mess, just know that I will track you down and drag you back home by the collar,” Daichi threatened, and Shouyou smiled. It was nice to be fought over.

It didn’t take long for Akaashi to learn how to toss to Shouyou. He had been perfectly setting him up all evening, making it easy for Shouyou to spike. However, he fumbled a bit when Bokuto yelled in his ear.

“Oh, ho, ho, and who is this?” Bokuto asked. Shouyou panicked midair while Bokuto poked his head around the net. Shouyou finished his spike and landed nimbly on his feet. He turned to look where Bokuto was staring, and gasped happily.

“Kenma! You’re here early!”

“Early?” Kuroo said, hands on his hips. He seemed put off. “Usually Kenma has been back in the room playing on his PSP for a good hour and a half by this time of night,” he said. Shouyou perked up at that, glad to hear that Kuroo cared about Kenma enough to know his schedule so well.

“Right, well, actually Shouyou and I were planning to talk to you after you guys finished up in here,” Kenma said, looking down at his toes. He looked so small, and for the first time, Shouyou really got to see what Kenma’s social anxiety looked like. Usually, he stood up straight when he was talking to Shouyou, but with Bokuto, Akaashi, and Tsukishima here, he seemed to be shrinking.

Kuroo’s brow furrowed, but he didn’t say anything. Akaashi cleared his throat politely. “You know, with Shouyou’s last spike that ties us up. How about we pause this game here and pick up where we left off tomorrow?” he offered.

Bokuto immediately started whining. “But I wanted to win against glasses-kun!” he complained with a pout. Tsukishima coughed, narrowing his eyes at Bokuto. “Sorry, against Tsukishima-kun.”

Akasshi blinked at Bokuto, and even Shouyou could see the exhaustion in his eyes. “You can beat him tomorrow. Come get dinner with me,” Akaashi said, walking to put the ball away. As he passed by Bokuto he let his fingertips trail gracefully over the other boy’s shoulders, and Bokuto’s knees seemed to go weak for a second.

“Okay,” he agreed easily, following after Akaashi like a lost puppy.

Akaashi gave Lev and Tsukishima a look, telling them to follow, but Lev didn’t seem to pick up on it. Fortunately, Tsukishima was there to pull him out by the wrist. Kenma seemed to shrink even smaller when the door closed behind them and the three of them were alone.

“Why does it feel like I’m missing something?” Kuroo asked eventually. Shouyou tilted his head to the side. He wasn’t used to seeing Kuroo so serious. Usually, he was running around with Bokuto, aiming serves at Lev’s head and teasing Tsukishima for trying to act cool. It was like he was a whole different person now.

“You’re not missing anything, I just... I need to talk to you, but I kept putting it off,” Kenma said, scratching his wrist awkwardly.

Kuroo frowned. “Then why is Hinata here?”

“Moral support,” Shouyou replied, waving his fingers awkwardly at the older boy. Kuroo opened his mouth to speak, but Shouyou started talking before he could. “It’s nothing bad, it’s just... Kenma wants to be able to spend more time with you, but he can’t do that if-“

“If there’s always people around!” Kenma yelped. Shouyou jumped back, surprised. Even Kenma looked shocked by his outburst. The older boy clamped a hand over his mouth, his eyes open and round, before words seemed to almost tumble out of him. “You’re a social guy and you have a lot of friends, I get it. But I thought we were best friends. And as my best friend you should know that I don’t do well at parties, but... but I do really well with just you, so why can’t we, I mean, why can’t you, or, I mean-“

“He wants to spend more alone time with you,” Shouyou said, sensing his cue to step in.

Kuroo’s jaw hung open before he crossed the gym as quick as he could to get to Kenma’s side. He lightly grabbed the younger boy’s elbow. Kenma looked down at his toes, but Kuroo didn’t look like he was about to accept that. “Hey... Hey, look at me, is that true?” he asked, tilting Kenma’s head up. “You wanna hang out with me more? Just me?”

Kenma flinched away. “Well, yeah, of course. You’re... you’re graduating. We don’t have much time left, and I want to be able to hang out with you. Just you.”

Kuroo looked heartbroken. He seemed guiltier than Shouyou would have expected, and it made his heart swell up happily for Kenma. It was clear that Kuroo cared, and Shouyou was happy that they had each other. “Well, then, why didn’t you say something?” Kuroo asked. “I wanna hang out with just you, too. All the time, just you.”

Kenma looked off to the side. Shouyou wondered how hard he had to try to keep his expression looking so neutral. “Really?”

“Of course. Kenma, I-“ he cut himself off and looked at Shouyou. “Well, maybe we should be alone to talk about some of this stuff.”

Kenma raised his gaze to meet Shouyou’s. “Yeah. Yeah, I don’t think I’ll need any more moral support, right?” he asked, looking to Kuroo fearfully.

Kuroo smiled warmly down at him. “Right.”

“Okay,” Kenma said, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. “All right. Shouyou, thanks for being here for the start. But I think it’s your turn.”

“My turn?” Shouyou asked, confused.

Kenma smirked. “Just leave the gym through the doors I came in from. You’ll see what I mean,” he said, grinning weakly. It was the largest display of emotion Shouyou had ever seen on the other boy’s face. He bit his bottom lip but complied. As he left the gym –happy that Kenma and Kuroo were going to sort things out- he bumped straight into someone’s chest.

“Ah, whoops, I’m sorry,” he apologized. He looked up at the person’s face, and a gush of air left his lungs. “Oh, Kageyama,” he said, realizing just what Kenma meant by “your turn.”

“Hi,” Kageyama said, once again looking at Shouyou like he was either scared of him or scared for him. “Do you have a second?”

Shouyou thought about Kenma coming over early and snorted. “Yeah, I guess so,” he replied, feeling set up. He wouldn’t mind talking things out with Kageyama –he’d been hoping the other boy would apologize for ages now- but that didn’t mean he liked having serious conversations sprung on him like this.

Kageyama only hummed in response. He stood frozen for a minute, and Shouyou debated waving a hand in front of his face to see if he was still alive, but before he could, Kageyama’s hand suddenly latched onto his own. “Do you wanna... Do you wanna maybe walk with me?” he asked, and Shouyou felt his whole face turn bright pink. Fortunately, he wasn’t the only one with red ears. Kageyama looked just as embarrassed, if not more so.

“Um... Um, yeah,” he agreed.

Shouyou let Kageyama lead him away from the gym and up the hill outside. They’d been running up and down this ridge all week as they lost game after game, but it felt different now. Quieter. Kageyama had them both sit down in the grass, face to face with their knees touching.

“So...” Shouyou said, looking up at the other boy.

Kageyama cleared his throat a little and looked off to the side, almost like Kenma did when he was stressed by too many people. Idly, Shouyou wondered if Kageyama had social anxiety, too.

“Can I have your other hand?” Kageyama blurted, already reaching for it. Shouyou let him take it, slightly alarmed. Kageyama was holding onto both of his hands, his thumbs rubbing the back of his palms like this was something they did all the time. “So I was wondering if you had a second to, like... talk, I guess.”

Shouyou laughed, breaking the seriousness of the moment. “You already asked that,” he pointed out, smiling. “But yeah, I do.”

Kageyama somehow managed to blush even darker. “Okay, well... Well... Well, I thought I should apologize, is all. So... So I’m going to.”

“You are?” Shouyou asked hopefully.

“Yeah.” Kageyama looked nervous, and he licked his lips. “Listen, Hinata-kun, I’m sorry I ever yelled at you. Like... Like, I’m so sorry. I usually don’t apologize, which I’m also sorry for because you probably know that better than anybody, but I have to say sorry for this because I was such a jerk. I had no idea how stupid a person could be until I yelled at you, and then I realized that people can be really, really dumb. And I’m dumb. The dumbest.”

Shouyou snorted. “Hinata-kun?”

Kageyama looked flustered. There was a thin film of sweat spread across his forehead. “I’m just trying to be respectful!” he squeaked.

Shouyou bit his lip to keep from laughing, but he sobered up pretty quickly when Kageyama started to look a little too heartbroken. He took a deep breath. “Right, okay. Well, Kageyama-kun,” he said, unable to help himself, “I’m not going to lie, it wasn’t fun to have you mad at me. But mostly, I’m sorry that I was so hard to take care of.” He stared at the grass so he didn’t have to look at Kageyama. “I never meant to make my Tourette’s your problem. I wish you didn’t have to deal with it at all. It’s so... It’s so embarrassing.”

“Wait, Hinata-“

“No, no, let me finish,” Shouyou replied, and Kageyama quieted. “You’ve been a really good friend to be there for all my panic attacks and problems. You haven’t complained about any of my tics in ages, and I know they can be annoying. I sort of get why you blew up.”

“But I haven’t been a good friend,” Kageyama argued. “You didn’t come to school for days after what happened, and then... and then when you did, I knew you were upset, but I didn’t do anything about it, which was... dumb. I’m so dumb.” Shouyou leaned back a bit as Kageyama berated himself. “I was frustrated, you know? But not with you. Never with you. You’re... You’re too much,” he gushed.

Shouyou cocked his head to the side, officially lost. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that you’re great. You’re such a good friend. You’re so stupid and you make me laugh, and like... that’s too much for me to deal with, like what the hell am I supposed to do about that?” Kageyama asked. His temper was starting to flare up, and his tone grew angrier and angrier with every word. “But for some reason, you don’t think you’re great. Like... like people make fun of you, and you just accept it because you think they’re right, that there’s truth to what they’re saying, but that’s not true at all, and that’s also too much for me.

“But then I get frustrated, and you like... You want to protect everyone –even the people who are mean to you- because you’re so nice, and that’s too much. It’s all too much.

“And it makes me so discouraged. Because you should be treated like a prince, Hinata. Everyone should be catering you and taking care of you, not making fun of you and... and hurting you. It’s awful what people do to you, and I wish you understood how terrible it really is. I want you to get that you don’t deserve it, that it’s nonsense.”

Kageyama went from practically spitting mad to emotional, and Shouyou’s mouth hung open. He had been hoping for an apology, but he hadn’t been expecting this. Needless to say, he was overwhelmed. “Kageyama-“

“I’m not letting anyone hurt you again, okay?” Kageyama interrupted, his voice tight. “It was my fault, I shouldn’t have blamed you, I was just mad.” He took a deep breath. “I should have never said it was hard taking care of you; I didn’t mean it the way it came out. I just meant that it’s hard for me to see you hurt, and it’s hard to be so helpless at fixing any of it. But I like being able to take some responsibility for you; you’re important to me.”

Shouyou floundered for a second –his mouth snapping open and closed- before his eyes welled up with tears and he all but threw himself at Kageyama. “You dork,” he choked out as he climbed into Kageyama’s lap. He hugged him tight. Usually, Kageyama struggled with words, so he must have been thinking about what to say for days to come off so eloquently. “You absolute dork.”

“... Are you still mad at me?”

“No, you idiot, of course not.”

Their hands ended up intertwined again on the way to dinner. Shouyou was practically dragging Kageyama behind him; he was worried that the managers would be putting everything away by the time they got there. He needed food. It was either eat or pass out and drown in his own tears.

They were turning a corner when Shouyou spotted Kuroo and Kenma walking ahead of them. Their hands were also tangled together.

“Hey! Kuroo! Kenma!” Hinata chirped, getting their attention.

Kuroo turned around, an exceptionally energetic smile on his face. “Hey, hey, hey!” he said in greeting, sounding surprisingly like Bokuto. Kenma rolled his eyes. “Nice to see you again, Pipsqueak. Is this the bae?”

“The what?” Shouyou asked while Kageyama simply greeted his friends.

“Kuroo. Kozume.”

“Kageyama,” Kenma said. Kuroo and Hinata shared a look before snickering behind their hands. It was ridiculous, how indifferent Kageyama and Kenma’s were when they met new people. Shouyou would love to stick them in a room alone together and record whatever conversation they managed to have, if they even bothered to talk to each other.

Shouyou swung his and Kageyama’s hands between them, and Kuroo brightened upon noticing them. “So! Are you two dating now, too?” he asked, excited.

Kageyama flinched. “I’m sorry?”

“We’re just off to dinner!” Shouyou replied before Kuroo could repeat himself. “We’re going to have... have whatever everyone’s having- Rice! Usually there’s rice! Or, well, there’s always rice, but we’re going to have that, and it’s going to be great, honest. Come on, Kageyama, let’s go,” Shouyou said, pulling Kageyama in front of Kuroo and Kenma.

“Hinata, do you-“

“Hey, you know what? The craziest thing happened to me during that last Fukurodani match. And by crazy, I mean normal, but that’s fine, let me just tell you all about it. So basically, during the first set, my legs felt really ready to jump, but by the end of the game, I felt really tired- Or, I think I’m explaining things too quickly. Let me tell you how my legs felt point by point...“

Shouyou kept talking.

And talking.

And talking.

Every time Kageyama tried to get a word in edgewise, Shouyou started up the conversation again. He refused to give the other boy the opportunity to ask what Kuroo meant about dating or how Shouyou felt about it. He wasn’t ready to be rejected yet, not after they finally were on speaking terms again.

Shouyou somehow managed to keep rambling all through dinner. He spoke through mouthfuls of rice and pork. He didn’t stop until they got back to the room with the rest of the team. It was too crowded here for Kageyama to ask him about anything personal.

“Yo, Hinata. You sound hoarse,” Nishinoya said. He tossed Shouyou a water bottle.

Shouyou caught it in one hand. “Thanks, I don’t think I’m getting sick. I just talked a little too much,” he replied. Kageyama snorted next to him, but Shouyou chose to ignore him. A little, a lot... What was the difference?

Shouyou didn’t want to risk holding Kageyama’s hand again, at least not when other people were around. However, now that they were on good terms again, he couldn’t keep away. He wanted to touch Kageyama all of the time.

So he had to get creative.

Shouyou stood in front of Kageyama during the Tokyo training camp’s final barbecue. Whenever Kageyama tried to grab meat from the grill, his arms had to reach around Hinata. It was... nice, even if every now and then Kageyama’s arm brushing against him made Hinata giggle uncontrollably. He could stay holed up between Kageyama’s arms forever.

“You like steak best, huh?” Shouyou asked, quickly grabbing Kageyama a good-looking piece before Tanaka could get to it. Kageyama ate it off of Shouyou’s chopsticks like it was nothing.

“Yeah. I have an O blood type, so I’m supposed to eat an awful lot of protein,” he said, around a mouthful.

“Type O?” he asked, turning around to look up at Kageyama. “I’m type AB.”

Kageyama hummed, reaching for a piece of onion. His arm –once again- wrapped around Shouyou’s shoulders as he did so. “That makes sense. Type O and type AB are supposed to go really well together.”

Shouyou faltered. He had been trying to eat a piece of corn but it fell to his plate. “You think we go well together?” he squeaked. The hand that wasn’t holding his plate flapped by his side.

Before Kageyama could answer, Bokuto swooped in out of nowhere, locking Hinata into a headlock. “Hey, hey, hey! Shorty, that quick you have is insane! I kind of hate you for it!” he said, referring to their last match.

Shouyou immediately forgot about waiting for Kageyama’s answer. Instead, he focused on Bokuto, who was just about the coolest person he’d ever met. He had no idea why a Top 5 spiker would pay any interest in him, but he wasn’t complaining. “

“Bokuto-san, you’re crushing my windpipe,” he choked out, eyes sparkling despite how uncomfortable Bokuto’s hold on him was.

Bokuto only laughed. “Good! I’ll strangle you, so I don’t have to worry about you beating me when I see you at Nationals.”

Kageyama intervened, and gently pried Shouyou free of Bokuto’s grasp. “Yeah, no thank you, I won’t be having that,” he said. Shouyou flushed as he exchanged hands. Kageyama had a protective grip on his shoulder, and it sent butterflies fluttering through Shouyou’s stomach.

“You think we’ll see each other at Nationals?” Shouyou asked, standing up stick straight.

Bokuto nodded, smiling encouragingly. “Of course! You’re starting to become a real nuisance, Hinata. I’m sure most people don’t like seeing you on the other side of the net. There’s no doubt that your team will win in your prefecture,” he said with a wink. Shouyou couldn’t help but squeal in excitement, and Kageyama ruffled his hair fondly.

“You’re the best, Bokuto!” Hinata yelped.

Bokuto grinned. “No, you’re the best.”

“No, you’re the best!”

“No, you’re the best!”

“How about you’re both the best and you both stop talking,” Tsukishima interjected, pushing his glasses up on his nose. He was eating next to them, and Bokuto whirled around to face him.

“We’re both the best, huh?” he asked, wiggling his eyebrows.

Tsukishima sighed. He sounded exhausted, like the weight of the world was balanced on his shoulders. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it. I just wanted you to stop being so stupid.”

“Glasses-kun, you can fool me. I know you love me,” Bokuto said, wrapping Tsukishima up in a hug. He was practically hanging off the other boy. Tsukishima, however, stared straight ahead and didn’t pay him any attention.

“Don’t you have somewhere else to be?”

“I just want to be with you, Tsukki.”

“Gross. You sound like those two,” Tsukishima complained, gesturing to Kageyama and Shouyou. A little too late, Shouyou realized he was still standing flush against Kageyama.

He blushed, but didn’t comment on it. Instead, he pulled away from Kageyama to leap onto Tsukishima, too. (He usually followed Bokuto’s lead, especially when it meant annoying Tsukki.) However, no matter what he did, he couldn’t get rid of the tingling feeling on his shoulder where Kageyama had touched him.

“That was such a good week, you know? It sucks that we have to go back to school so soon, I could stay at that training camp forever. Kuroo and Bokuto-san are so cool, and Akaashi was really nice, and we were just starting to win -“

“Hey, just relax,” Kageyama said, interrupting Shouyou’s tirade. His voice was devoid of any of the anger it usually held. Lately, Kageyama had only been speaking to Shouyou with the upmost respect. He seemed to be trying to be more cautious when he was talking to him lately. It was a welcome change, and it proved that he really was sorry about everything that had happened the last time they were in Tokyo.

Currently, they were on the bus ride home from training camp. Everyone else on the team was asleep, but Shouyou was still bubbling with excitement. He’d been talking nonstop for the better half of an hour, and Kageyama had patiently listened up until now.

“You’ve had a long week, and we’re not going to be home until late,” Kageyama continued. “You should try to get some sleep.”

“I don’t know if I can,” Shouyou said, at least lowering his voice.

Kageyama grunted in acknowledgement and put a hand on Shouyou’s head, his thumb twirling his hair absentmindedly. It felt really nice. Shouyou closed his eyes to better enjoy the feeling. “Well, I’m really tired,” Kageyama said, blinking sleepily when Shouyou peeked open one eye to look at him. “How about we both try to settle down, okay?”

Shouyou hummed, closing his eyes again as Kageyama continued to play with his hair. “What do you have in mind?” he asked, nose twitching once before his body seemed to still.

“I dunno... This.” Kageyama’s voice was hushed on the quiet bus.

“This?”

“I dunno,” Kageyama repeated. He yawned, and Shouyou’s heart warmed up. He looked so cute when he was yawing, his stupid bangs falling away from his face a little bit as his head tipped back. Kageyama scrubbed his right eye with his free hand. “I’m just... I think I’m about to fall asleep, not that I don’t want to listen to you.”

Shouyou sat up a little straighter. “No, I understand. Go to sleep if you want.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Shouyou replied easily. Kageyama seemed to take his word as final because he slumped against Shouyou’s shoulder not even a second later. He fell asleep almost instantly. Kageyama really was pretty, especially when he was sleeping. His skin looked so soft and cute when it was relaxed like this. His cheeks were perfectly pink, and his eyes were like little, inky black smudges when he was resting.

Shouyou buried his nose in Kageyama’s hair to hide his smile.

Shouyou swung open the door to his house, humming as loudly as he could. However, instead of humming because he had to, he was humming because he wanted to.

The last week had been amazing. He and Kageyama had never gotten along so well. It didn’t even feel contrived, like Kageyama was just being nice to make up for their fight. No, for the first time ever, Kageyama seemed like he was being sincere. He was giving Shouyou positive feedback along with his corrections; he was playing with his hair and resting his hand on his head between points. He was even passing Shouyou notes in class again.

Needless to say, Shouyou had responded positively to all of it. He loved the attention. It made him feel like singing, so much so that Shouyou had been humming every day on his way home from Ukai’s.

“Shouyou, you sound like you’re in good mood again,” his mother said, popping her head out from the kitchen. Shouyou sent her a massive smile as he took of his shoes.

“I am! Guess what Kageyama did today!” he said, jumping up and down in excitement. His head whipped to the side a few times, but otherwise, his body was acting solely on his own accord.

“What?”

“So this morning, Daichi had us do a lot of conditioning for our arms, right? And like... Honestly, mom, my triceps have never hurt more in my life, if I do one more half-cobra push up, I’m going to throw myself off of a ten story building just to end the pain,” he started, giving some backstory before he got to Kageyama’s part.

His mom nodded knowingly, stirring something in a bowl on her hip. “Of course,” she agreed. There was a tiny smirk on her face, however, that said she thought Shouyou was being ridiculous.

“Mom! Seriously, it was crazy!” Shouyou complained. He let his arms hang like limp noodles in front of him. “See? I don’t think I can even bend my elbows... But anyway, so we were walking to the clubroom after class, and I was complaining about my arms, so Kageyama offered to carry my bag for me. Isn’t that nice?”

“Incredibly nice,” his mother agreed. “That Kageyama is a polite young man.”

“Yeah,” Shouyou agreed. He placed his shoes nicely in the entryway and trailed after his mother into the kitchen. She had cake pans out, and Shouyou hoped that meant she was baking and that he would get to eat some of it. “Hey, what are you making?”

“Ichigo cake.”

“Ichigo?!”

“Yes, but it’s not for you,” his mother said, smacking his hand away when he tried to stick his fingers in the bowl. “I’m having a book club meeting tomorrow, and so I’m making all of our snacks in advance,” she explained. “There are some extra strawberries, though, if you want to have some before dinner.”

Shouyou immediately changed directions and headed to the refrigerator. He fished out the strawberries and sat on the counter with the bowl, refusing to get down when his mom tried to brush him off.

She sighed. “So tell me more about this Kageyama, huh? It seems like things are off and on with him.”

“I mean... We had that dumb fight and all, but he apologized,” Shouyou said, not getting too into it. He didn’t have much time to talk when there was a bowl of washed strawberries in front of him.

His mom looked at him warily before getting out the beaters to whip some egg whites in a separate bowl. “Did he apologize well? For the right reasons?” she asked over the sound of the beaters, and Shouyou nodded.

“Yeah, like... like perfectly, Mom. He said he was sorry about the yelling, but he also said sorry for blaming me. And he said that it’s just hard for him to see me hurt and stuff, but he realizes he was wrong, and he’s just... He was shitty for a while, but I think he had to be? Because I think he’s like Kenma, you know?”

“Like... like awkward?” his mom asked.

Shouyou snorted, thinking about all the uncomfortable moments his mom had shared with Kenma when he came over to visit. “No. Or... Well, yeah, I guess. I think he’s a little anxious about talking to people, and I don’t think he knew how to talk to me after everything was said and done. But it’s all sorted now, so I’m not worried about it. He apologized, and that’s more than enough for me.”

His mom hummed. She kept quiet until her egg whites formed stiff peaks. She spoke again as she poured in the other dry and wet ingredients. “So, here’s the real question: Do you like him?”

“Mom!”

“Well, do you?”

Shouyou’s cheeks warmed up, and he ducked his head to stare into the bowl of strawberries. He kicked his feet against the kitchen cabinets. “I mean... Yes,” he admitted. “I know he made a mistake, but he owned up to it, and he’s been really great ever since. I think I can trust him,” he explained, trying to defend his crush. He was worried his mom might have lowered her opinion of Kageyama after their fight, and he wanted her to approve of his crush on him.

“I know you can trust him. He’s a good kid,” she promised. “You should ask him on a date.”

Shouyou’s heart soared when his mom expressed approval for Kageyama, but it plummeted right down into his stomach when she suggested that he ask him out. “Ah, no. He’s like... way out of my league.”

“What makes you say that?”

“I dunno... He’s like... He’s really cute. All the girls in class like him, and like... I have Tourette’s, you know? It makes me look like an idiot. Plus, I can’t read. I’m not as good at volleyball as he is. I can’t keep quiet, I have all these panic attacks, people make fun of me, I’m short-“

“Oi, that’s enough,” his mom said, cutting him off. “You might be able to list a bunch of negative things about yourself, but don’t ignore your good qualities. You’re great, Shouyou, and I’m not just saying that because you’re my son. You’re outgoing, and brave, and kind... Anyone would be lucky to date you, including Kageyama. You should tell him how you feel.”

Shouyou shrank inwards on himself. “I don’t know...”

His mom whipped his leg with a dishtowel. “I don’t want to hear that, okay? It upsets me when you talk so lowly about yourself, especially when you’re such a great person. I raised you right! Acknowledge it!”

“Mom,” Shouyou whined, but his mother just shook her head.

“Acknowledge it!”

“Fine!” Shouyou agreed, throwing his hands up in the air. “I’m a great catch, anyone would want to date me,” he said, doing a poor impression of his mother’s voice. She smiled and ruffled his hair.

“There you go,” she said happily, turning back to her cake.

Shouyou’s hands went up to twist in his hair, but he didn’t feel anxious. Honestly, maybe he should tell Kageyama about how he was feeling. Everyone was saying that Kageyama liked him back. Maybe they were both just waiting for someone to take the first step.

“Want an orange slice?” Kageyama asked, nudging his bento across the desk. Shouyou grabbed the fruit greedily.

“Are you sure you don’t want it?”

“It’s all yours,” Kageyama promised. Shouyou nodded and stuck the whole thing in his mouth. Kageyama wrinkled his nose, disturbed, until Shouyou smiled around the peel. His mouth looked orange, and Kageyama snorted. “See, it’s stuff like this that make people mistake you for an elementary schooler.”

“It’s comments like yours that make people think you don’t have a sense of humor,” Shouyou replied sassily. He smacked his forehead. “Oh, wait. You don’t.”

Kageyama’s eyes sparked and a small smirk played on his face. It was no secret that Shouyou and Kageyama both liked teasing each other, and that wouldn’t change, no matter what their relationship was like. “You’re a dumbass.”

“You’re an idiot,” Shouyou replied, flicking a stray piece of rice at Kageyama.

Kageyama frowned when it landed on his cheek, and he picked it off. His whole face scrunched up, and Shouyou’s heart melted. Even when Kageyama had rice on his face, he was cute. Like... Like, unbelievably cute.

Suddenly, he remembered the conversation he had with his mom. Maybe he really should tell Kageyama how he felt. He had Tourette’s, and that was awful, but... But Kageyama had been friends with him for almost a full school year, and it seemed like he had finally gotten used to Shouyou’s tics. He didn’t even blink when Shouyou randomly shouted or squeaked, and he didn’t do that nearly as often as he cycled through his motor tics.

Plus, the way their legs were tangled up beneath Kageyama’s desk was promising.

As Shouyou thought about confessing, his heart rate started to pick up. Without warning, his facial tics went on a tirade. He tried to stop it –he hated blinking so hard and fast that he couldn’t see anything- but naturally, holding back only made it worse.

Shouyou’s fingers tangled in his hair. He tried to twirl it, but his head kept whipping to the side, making it impossible. He hated when his tics overlapped like this. He hated having tics in the first place.

“Hey, are you okay?” Kageyama asked.

Shouyou didn’t respond, he just squeaked. He wasn’t panicking, thank goodness, but his tics were out of control. Kageyama wouldn’t stand for it, though. He reached out and untangled Shouyou’s hands from his hair. Before Shouyou could even try to go back to twirling it, Kageyama was combing his fingers through his fringe instead.

Shouyou immediately relaxed. Or, well, his nose was still crinkling and his eyes were still blinking every now and then, but at least his head stopped turning to the side. “There you go, you’re all right,” Kageyama promised. And then –truly and honestly- he smiled.

Like a real smile. Shouyou couldn’t remember Kageyama ever smiling at him before, but that was probably for the best, considering how hard it hit him. It was so small and pretty. Shouyou had been mooning for the past month about how pretty Kageyama was, but he had no idea. He had no clue how amazing Kageyama could look, and it took everything he had no to throw himself straight at his smile. He’d never wanted to kiss Kageyama more in his life.

But the only thing worse than not kissing Kageyama was not ever talking to Kageyama. He had already been there and done that, and Shouyou didn’t want to go there again. Confessing to Kageyama could ruin their friendship. He couldn’t have that.

“Yeah, I’m all right,” he agreed, nuzzling into Kageyama’s hand. “Can I have another orange slice?”

Kageyama rolled his eyes. “Have as many as you want, dumbass.”

“Thanks, I’ll just go ahead and do that, idiot.”

“Sho~ou-chan!” Natsu sang in greeting, jumping up on the sofa next to her brother. “You’re home this afternoon! I’ve missed you!”

Shouyou closed his notebook and stuffed it into his opened textbook. He knew he wouldn’t be able to do much studying with Natsu pestering him. He turned to face her. “I’ve been missing you, too,” he admitted. “But I was trying to get better at spiking, you know? So I had to do some extra training.”

“With that weird old guy?”

“He’s not weird!”

Natsu arched an eyebrow at him. Shouyou wondered how someone so young could hold so much sass. Eventually, however, he had to concede.

“Okay, he’s a little weird, but he’s given me a ton of good advice, and all my hard work has definitely paid off. Daichi says so,” he said, as if Daichi’s opinion was the deciding factor for all volleyball matters.

Natsu’s face screwed up, and she leaned forward to grab her toes. “Can we talk about something other than volleyball? Or can we do something? I wanna play ping pong,” she demanded. Shouyou tickled her sides.

“We don’t have a ping pong table, silly goose,” he said, while she giggled and pushed his hands away. His knees were hopping, but Natsu was a good enough distraction that it wasn’t bothering him.

“Then badminton! Can we play badminton?” she asked, still laughing even after Shouyou pulled his hands away.

“Yeah! That sounds fun,” he agreed. He had a lot more energy lately. He didn’t stay up late, stressing about him and Kageyama. They had found some sort of niche, and it was allowing Shouyou to sleep easier. Also, he was more relaxed during the day with Kageyama being so nice to him. It made it easy to train with the older Coach Ukai.

It also was helpful when it came to playing games with energetic little sisters.

Natsu rushed out to the garage to find their rackets, while Shouyou searched one of his desk drawers for a shuttlecock. Eventually, he fished one out from behind an old math workbook, and he met Natsu in the yard outside.

“Zero serving zero!” he shouted once he had his racket. He aimed the serve gently over towards Natsu, but she still missed. His little sister squealed when the shuttlecock got stuck in her hair. “Oh, oh, oh, don’t pull, don’t pull. I’ll help,” Shouyou said, rushing forward. He helped free the white plastic feathers from her hair while she sniffled. He held it up triumphantly once it was loose. “Do you wanna keep playing?” he asked.

Natsu nodded. “I’m serving this time, though,” she demanded, snatching the shuttlecock from Shouyou’s hands. She ran across the yard.

“Zero serving zero!” she yelled. Although, she should have given Shouyou one point after she missed his last serve. If Shouyou hadn’t been in such a good mood lately, he would have yelled at her. Usually, he was too competitive to let Natsu cheat.

But he was feeling good, and he didn’t really care who won for a change. They played out in the yard until the sun went down and the score was 32 to 41. (Natsu was bad at returning Shouyou’s serves, but she was equally bad at aiming her own, so Shouyou couldn’t play well either.)

“Hey, are you getting hungry?” Shouyou asked, and Natsu paused, thinking.

“Yes! Can we have soba?”

“Sure,” Shouyou replied. “But I can’t really do tempura to put on top,” he said with a wince. He wasn’t the best cook. While his mom could deep fry with no problem, Shouyou would undoubtedly burn the house down if he tried to use that much oil.

“That’s okay, I want it cold. With okura?” she asked, walking into the garage with Shouyou to put their sports equipment away.

“Anything you want,” Shouyou said easily, sweeping her up into his arms the second she had put her racket down. She giggled when her feet suddenly left the ground, and he blew a raspberry on her arm.

Natsu was so cute. He was going to miss her being this little when she grew up, but for now he was going to enjoy every minute of it.

Shouyou squirmed in his seat at the library. He groaned as he started his next math problem. So far, he had complained as he began every math problem, and he was on his thirtieth question. He didn’t feel like sitting in some stuffy library, he wanted to go outside and run around.

Kageyama seemed to sense his restlessness. “You have an unreasonable amount of energy today,” he commented, never looking up from his English flashcards. Shouyou groaned again, this time louder, and Kageyama kicked him under the table. “Oi, calm down, this is a library,” he snapped.

Shouyou pouted. “But I’m bored. And it’s lame in here. Can’t we go outside? I want you to toss to me,” he whined.

Kageyama scowled. “You’re in rare form.”

“Is that an insult?” Shouyou asked, squinting at Kageyama. The other boy sighed and set down his flash cards.

“It just means you’re being kind of whiney,” he teased.

Shouyou smirked. If Kageyama was going to be obnoxious, then Shouyou was going to be obnoxious, too. “What do you meeean?!” he wailed loudly, reaching pitches that only dogs could hear. “I’m not being anything, I just wanna play with you. Please, Kageyama, pleeeease.”

Kageyama snorted, and threw a flash card at Shouyou like it was a shuriken. “You’re going to get us thrown out of here,” he said, but he couldn’t fool Shouyou. He could see the mirth in Kageyama’s eyes, and Shouyou knew that this was as close to laughing as Kageyama ever got.

“But, I just want to play with you-“

“Excuse me!” Shouyou turned around at the sharp voice of the librarian. She was frowning down at them, her glasses barely balancing on the tip of her nose. “Please keep your voices down, this is a library, not a playground,” she said.

“Okay, sorry,” Shouyou said, putting his hands up awkwardly. Meanwhile, Kageyama shrunk in his seat, looking overwhelmingly uncomfortable.

“I should think so,” the librarian replied. She stomped away, and Shouyou rolled his eyes before noticing how off put Kageyama seemed.

“Hey, don’t mind her, she was just being crabby,” Shouyou whispered, careful to keep his voice down now that they had just gotten yelled at.

Kageyama squirmed in his seat. He looked at war with himself for a moment before speaking. “I just... I don’t really know what to do in situations like that,” Kageyama said. “You’re so good at talking to people. I only know how to be angry and quiet.”

Shouyou folded his legs up underneath him, stretching across the table to pat Kageama’s hand consolingly. “Don’t worry, you’re okay. You’re not being angry or quiet now,” he pointed out.

Kageyama’s eyebrows furrowed together and he pulled his hand away. “It’s different with you,” he replied. His tone was final. Shouyou sputtered, but Kageyama ignored him in favor of going back to his English studies, leaving Shouyou to try to figure out what on earth that meant.

Shouyou tried to go back to his math, but it proved impossible. Eventually, he gave up and propped his feet up in Kageyama’s lap. “You know what? I think I was right; this place is lame. What do you say we go back to my house, where there’s no one to bother us, yeah? Just you and me?” he offered, sensing that Kageyama might feel better if he was away from strangers.

The relieved look on Kageyama’s face proved he was right. “As long as you quiz me on the way,” Kageyama replied, already packing up his things. Shouyou smiled.

“Sure, anything for you!”

Nishinoya threw a grape up in the air as high as he possibly could. “No way,” Tanaka said when Nishinoya opened his mouth to catch it. Noya didn’t respond, just opened his mouth wider. “No way... No way... No way! NO WAY!” Tanaka yelled as the grape fell, and fell, and fell straight into Nishinoya’s mouth.

Nishinoya chewed and smiled. “Your turn,” he said, and Tanaka rubbed both hands over his face.

“Damn. Okay. Let me try,” he said, standing up.

Shouyou turned to Kageyama, happy to find that they were sitting closer than he would have thought. “Do you think he can do it?” he asked, his face delightfully close to Kageyama’s.

“Doubtful,” Kageyama said dryly, stretching out in the grass. The four of them –Shouyou, Kageyama, Nishinoya, and Tanaka- were all eating breakfast together before class started. Shouyou was uncomfortably sweaty from practice, but at least he was in fresh clothes. Plus, there was a nice breeze blowing through the sweaty hair at the nape of his neck. (It was also pleasantly blowing through Kageyama’s bangs, but he was trying not to think so hard about it.)

Tanaka hurled the grape as high as he could, but when it came back down, it beaned him in the eye instead of landing in his mouth.

“Ha! Ryuu, you suck,” Nishinoya laughed.

Tanaka smacked the libero on the back of the head. “Don’t make fun of me in front of my kouhai!” Tanaka demanded, looking put out.

Shouyou took pity on him. “Don’t worry, Tanaka. You didn’t catch it, but you threw it way higher than Nishinoya did. That’s impressive!” he promised. Kageyama didn’t say anything, but he did rub Shouyou’s back supportively, which was pretty close to an agreement.

“See that, Yuu? I’m stronger than you,” Tanaka said, sticking his tongue out.

“Strength doesn’t matter as much as aim!” Nishinoya argued. “At least, it won’t during prelims.”

Shouyou immediately stiffened. As excited as he was for the tournament to start, he couldn’t help but feel anxious whenever anyone brought it up. He had been training so hard, but he still wasn’t sure he was good enough.

He didn’t want to be insecure. He wanted to treat himself well and feel confident; that was what his mom and Kageyama both wanted for him. However, only one team could win Nationals, and Shouyou had talked himself up too much for Karasuno not to win.

“Dude, I’m hype for preliminaries,” Tanaka said, flexing. “There’s not a block I can’t blast through.”

“You’re ridiculously overconfident,” Nishinoya said, bumping shoulders with Tanaka. He tossed another grape into the air and caught it easily. “But I think you’ll probably spike free a couple times. I’ll get any ball that comes at me to Kageyama for you, and he’ll take care of the rest, right?” he asked, his leg stretching out so he could kick Kageyama with his sneaker.

Kageyama sipped on his milk carton. “Tossing to Tanaka is easy. He does the same thing every time.”

Tanaka immediately got defensive. “Excuse me?” he asked, glaring down his nose at Kageyama in the way only Tanaka could.

Kageyama put his hands up in surrender. “No, no, it’s a good thing. Like... I don’t have to think too hard when I toss to you, and it’s good for me to save mental strength, and also... I like sure things,” Kageyama said, his thumb rubbing Shouyou’s lower back. Shouyou had forgotten he was touching him for a moment. “It’s good when things are easy and comfortable,” he said.

Tanaka squinted. “... Sure,” he said. He looked confused, but Nishinoya was snickering behind his hand for some reason. Shouyou didn’t have time to question it, though, before Tanaka was talking to him. “So, Hinata, are you excited for your second tournament?”

Shouyou froze. “Um... Yes?” he said, uncertain.

Three sets of eyes stared at him, unblinking. “Did you just say ‘yes’ like a question?” Nishinoya asked, tilting his head to the side. He looked concerned, but it was only serving to make Shouyou more nervous.

Shouyou crinkled his nose a couple times, his anxiety starting to really kick in. His eyes blinked. “I just want to win this time,” he replied. “And I want to play well.”

“Hinata... You will play well,” Nishinoya said. He was wearing the same expression he usually did when Asahi was saying self-deprecating things.

“Yeah, you’ve been practicing so much lately. You can hit like... all kinds of tosses like a real spiker. Plus, you and Kageyama just sorted out that new crazy quick,” Tanaka reassured. Shouyou appreciated his efforts, but he didn’t know how much any of that mattered. They hadn’t even gotten to semifinals during the last tournament. How could Shouyou expect to help Karasuno get to Nationals with his meager skills?

He didn’t say anything in response to his friends. Instead, he started fidgeting. His nose and eyes blinking as he grew more and more stressed. Fortunately, however, he was in good hands.

“Listen to your upperclassmen,” Kageyama said, reaching up a hand to card through Shouyou’s hair. He had been doing that more and more recently. Shouyou wondered if Kageyama knew just how much it helped him to calm down. “They’re right, you know. You’ve been doing great.”

“You think?” Shouyou asked quietly, looking solely at Kageyama.

“Of course,” Kageyama said sternly, pushing Shouyou’s fringe up off of his face. Shouyou felt his facial tics start to smooth out as Kageyama calmed him right down. This was so relaxing. It didn’t matter how stressed Shouyou felt, the second Kageyama started playing with his hair he started to unwind.

“Oi, everything okay with you two? You’re being weird,” Tanaka said, interrupting the moment.

Kageyama turned bright red and looked down at his toes. He only blushed harder when Nishinoya started laughing so hard he toppled over into the grass. Shouyou scrubbed at his twitchy nose. “Yeah, we’re fine,” he promised, feeling awkward about having such an intimate moment with Kageyama in front of his friends.

He had to stop getting so absorbed in Kageyama, especially when they were supposed to be just friends. Shouyou needed to make a decision. Did he want to date Kageyama or not?

While Kageyama playing with his hair had proved itself as a valid way of keeping Shouyou calm, it couldn’t fix everything. Sometimes, Shouyou’s anxiety was going to make him cry, and there was nothing he could do except let it out.

He just wished it wouldn’t keep happening in the middle of practice.

“Hey, Hinata, let’s go take a walk,” Suga offered when Shouyou let a spike whiz right over his head. He had been too overwhelmed to jump. Instead he just doubled over and held his knees, his chest heaving as he panicked.

There was no reason for him to be upset like this. They had been having a completely normal practice. Shouyou had been doing better than usual, even. His legs felt strong, he was aiming his spikes well... He had even scored the most points so far out of anyone on the team during their scrimmage. There was no reason to cry.

But somewhere along the line he started thinking about preliminaries. Even the thought of going up against other teams made Shouyou feel like throwing up. He felt so inferior and awful.

Suga spoke up again. “C’mon, Hinata, it would be best if we got you off the court.” He put his hands on both of Shouyou’s shoulders and led him out the door of the gym while Shouyou hyperventilated. “You’re okay, you’re okay.”

“Mmmmmm. Mmmmmm. I’m sorry, I’m –mmmmmmm- sorry,” he apologized. He was humming like crazy as tears started to pour down his cheeks. He wasn’t sure if this was even about preliminaries. Sure, the stress of the tournament seemed to trigger his anxiety, but his panic attack seemed to have a mind of it’s own.

Suga shook his head. “Hey, don’t mind, don’t mind,” he said, sitting Shouyou down on the ground outside the gym. “It’s going to happen, it’s okay. Everyone understands,” Suga promised.

Shouyou sniffled. For once, he was grateful for his tics. He was sure people were far more confused by Asahi’s panic attacks when he started getting them. However, thanks to his tics, his teammates could see that there was something wrong with his brain. It made moments like these slightly easier.

“Mmmmmm. I’m just –mmmmmmmmmmmm- freaking out for –mmm- no reason,” he explained through ragged breaths.

“Well, I’m sure that’s not true,” Kageyama chimed, walking out of the gym to join Suga and Shouyou.

Suga gave Kageyama one of his patented “mom” looks. “And what are you doing out here? Shouldn’t you be tossing for your team?” he asked. Yamaguchi could easily cover for one absent setter, but he couldn’t play on both sides of the net.

“Nishinoya has it. He wanted to practice his tosses anyway,” Kageyama said. Suga didn’t look convinced, but he didn’t say anything as Kageyama took a seat on the opposite side of Shouyou. “How are you holding up?” he said, directing the question at Shouyou, who was still humming loudly as he cried.

“Who –mmmmm- knows?” he replied, embarrassed. Kageyama reached out to finger comb Shouyou’s hair, but Shouyou flinched away before he could. “S-sorry,” he apologized. He didn’t know why, but he didn’t want Kageyama to comfort him right now.

Suga looked between the two of them for a moment. “Kageyama, maybe you should go back insi-“

“No!” Kageyama yelped. He looked alarmed by the sound of his own voice, and his gaze lowered to the ground. “Sorry, it’s just... I wasn’t there the last time Hinata was upset; I need to be there for him this time,” Kageyama explained, as if Shouyou couldn’t hear him.

Shouyou reached out and grabbed Kageyama’s hand, not caring if Suga saw. “You were overwhelmed,” he said, going from humming to squeaking. His head shook to the side over and over.

“No, I was dumb. I wasn’t the one who got hurt, you were, and I wasn’t there for you-“

“Bakeyama, if you start crying, then we’ll both be in tears, and Suga will have to call for reinforcement,” Shouyou scolded. His chest was heaving to the point where it was hard to speak, but he could see Kageyama’s eyes starting to get red. Kageyama did so much to take care of him. He wasn’t going to let him keep being strong while Shouyou broke down.

“But I messed up,” Kageyama reiterated, unraveling. “Every time I’d look over, you’d either be alone or with someone else, and I didn’t know which was worse, but I was- I was-“

Shouyou grew more alarmed as Kageyama genuinely worked himself up. He had turned his face to look towards the ground, but Shouyou was ninety-seven percent sure he saw a tear drip from Kageyama’s face. His squeaking increased in frequency and his arms flapped.

“You were scared. That’s okay. I understand,” he promised, holding back his squeaks for a couple seconds to speak. They hit him in full force when he was done, though. Kageyama didn’t look up as Shouyou’s vocal tics got the better of him. Suga stayed on standby just in case Kageyama and Shouyou couldn’t handle themselves. “You know me really well, but I know you, too. You get nervous to talk to people, I get it,” he said. “I can see why it might have been intimidating to talk to me after everything that happened.”

Kageyama brought his knees to his chest and hid his eyes in them. “Indimidating is a good word for it,” he choked out, and Shouyou managed a laugh through his tears. Kageyama was so cute.

“Right, so stop beating yourself up. You’re always there when it matters. Like that night at training camp, and like now,” Shouyou promised. He was starting to get a handle on the situation, and as he did, his anxiety seemed to quell. He took a few deep breaths to try to even out his heart rate.

“I just... I hate it when you’re sad.”

Shouyou flushed. “Well sometimes I can’t help it,” he replied. “And you don’t need to be there every time I’m upset. It’s okay, I’m a big boy, I can handle it by myself.”

“But you don’t have to,” Kageyama said, looking up. His eyes looked a little puffy. Shouyou looked down as Kageyama reached out for his hand and held on so tight that Shouyou thought he might lose circulation. “I can be there sometimes, too, okay? I want to be.”

Kageyama was scarily serious. He was the spitting image of the boy Hinata had first seen on the other side of the net during their middle school match. Determined. Angry. Desperate. But instead of being focused on himself, Kageyama was totally and solely focused on Shouyou.

“Kageyama...” Shouyou said, his eyes widening. He gently loosened the other boy’s fingers with his free hand. “You can be here whenever you want to be, okay? You’re always welcome,” he promised, hoping he wasn’t implying too much.

“Well, then, come here,” Kageyama demanded, giving Hinata’s arm a tug and pulling him into a hug.

Suga cleared his throat. “I think I’ll just go relieve Nishinoya,” he said, leaving them behind with a knowing smirk on his face. However, his words hardly registered to Shouyou. He was too wrapped up in Kageyama. His fingers tightened into the other boy’s t-shirt.

His breathing finally started to actually ease up as Kageyama held him close. He nuzzled his nose into the other boy’s shoulder and closed his eyes for a minute.

Shouyou could handle things on his own. He was independent, and he didn’t need to lean on anyone else. It was a good thing. It meant he didn’t have to rely on Kageyama always sticking around; and that if one day they fought and never made up, Shouyou would be able to move on. It meant that Shouyou could make decisions for himself and be his own person.

However, every relationship required a degree of codependency. And if there was one person Shouyou wouldn’t mind opening his heart to, letting himself be vulnerable in front of, breaking down his walls with, it would have to be Kageyama Tobio.

“Guys, I think I’m going to do it,” Hinata said, his fingers curling and uncurling with excitement.

Izumi laid his head down on the table, while Kouji punched it with his fist. “You think?”

“Shou-chan, you have to,” Izumi groaned. “You guys have been beating around the bush for over a year now. Just ask him out already. It’s obvious that he’s too awkward to do it.” Izumi didn’t even bother to lift his head up from the table, he was obviously too taxed to bother.

Shouyou hid his smile behind one of his textbooks. “He is pretty awkward, isn’t he?” he agreed fondly. If anything, though, he was endeared by how much Kageyama struggled in social settings. He would never tell Izumi or Kouji, but it was one of those kinds of faults where it just made Kageyama seem more human (and also more cute).

“Don’t,” Kouji said, holding his hand up against Shouyou’s lovesick expression. “The face you make when you’re mooning over Kageyama is the same face you make when you talk about meat buns. That’s so weird.”

“Honestly, I think his meat bun face might be more dreamy, if possible,” Izumi tacked on.

Shouyou hid his face further behind his textbook. He should have never brought Kageyama up. Now all chances of studying were thrown out the window. “All right, all right, I get it. You guys don’t want to talk about it, obviously, let’s just go back to our homework.”

Izumi gave Shouyou a look. “You’re kidding, right?” he asked. “You can’t just say you’re going to confess, and then not tell us what made you decide to. We need all the details,” he said, leaning forward with interest.

Kouji grimaced. “Speak for yourself,” he muttered. Izumi elbowed him in the ribs to get him to shut up.

“Come on, Shou-chan. We really want to know,” Izumi repeated, emphasizing the ‘we.’ Shouyou sat up a little straighter in his chair at the kitchen table, glad his friends were taking an interest in his love life. He bit his bottom lip.

“It’s not one thing, it’s just... Well, I don’t know. I just feel like we’ve been making leaps and strides lately, and like... the timing feels right somehow.”

“Leaps?” Kouji asked.

“Strides?” Izumi followed.

“Well, I don’t know,” Shouyou said, flushing. “He smiled in front of me. And I’ve seen him cry. I never thought that I’d see Kageyama do either of those things.” Usually, Kageyama’s default emotion was anger. To see anything else was encouraging for Shouyou. It made him feel like he was special, like Kageyama was letting him into his brain.

“Woah, woah, woah, and when did this happen?” Izumi interrogated, his face screwing up a bit. “Get it together, Shouyou. You’re leaving us with more questions than answers.”

Shouyou snorted, and took a sip of water. “When did he smile?” he asked, “Or when did he cry?”

“Both!” Izumi yelped.

“Okay, well he smiled at lunch because... Well, actually I don’t know why. My tics were flaring up and he like... made it better. But before that, we were having a really nice time, and he just... smiled,” he said, trying not to faint thinking about it. That one smile had made him swoon past the point of being a functioning human being. He was still a mess thinking about it. “And then as for the crying, he was just upset for being a jerk when it would have been nice to have him around after the whole, like... getting beat up thing.”

Izumi clasped his hands over his heart. “Oh my gosh, Shouyou. I approve. I so approve. You guys should get married, stay together forever,” he gushed, blinking fast.

Kouji, meanwhile, cleared his throat. “Um, right... I mean, it’s not that big a deal, but that’s... that’s really cool that he wants to take care of you so well,” he said, trying to look apathetic but failing miserably.

Shouyou patted his hand caringly. “Don’t be jealous, Kouji, I care about you just as much and more,” he promised. Kouji pulled his hand away with a scowl, but his eyes looked appeased. Shouyou draped himself across the table, thinking for a moment. “I dunno... Maybe I shouldn’t tell him how I feel.”

“Shou-chan, I love you, but that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” Izumi replied.

Kouji raised an eyebrow. “Seconded. Honestly, what are you even talking about?”

“Because I really do care about you guys, you know? I wouldn’t ever want to see you sad and by yourself. So maybe Kageyama doesn’t like me. Maybe he’s just best friends with me, like how you guys are my best friends,” Shouyou explained, speaking directly into the wooden tabletop.

Izumi made a keening noise. “Oh, Shou-chan, stop, you’re too perfect, it’s killing me,” he said. Sometimes Izumi went from one hundred percent frustrated to one hundred percent happy with Shouyou at breakneck speeds.

“Dude, Shouyou... We’re best friends, but I can tell you for sure that I don’t care about you the same way that Kageyama cares about you. You have to tell him,” Kouji said seriously.

Izumi seemed to sober up. “Yes, you have to do it,” he agreed, pulling his chair in closer to the table. “You guys are perfect for each other. He’s a setter, you’re a spiker. He’s introverted, you’re outgoing. He’s tall, you’re... not as tall?”

“Izumi!” Shouyou complained.

“No, just hear me out,” Izumi continued. “You guys are opposite on so many things, but like... you’re both really nice, and you both love volleyball. And you both work hard at school –even if I know you’re not good at it, Shouyou, and from what I hear, Kageyama’s not great at it either- and like... I don’t know. You’re a perfect fit. You have good chemistry. You would be a great couple.”

Shouyou scrubbed at his eyes. Izumi was basically bringing to light everything Shouyou had been thinking about for the past month. However, Shouyou wasn’t ready to give in just yet.

“But that doesn’t mean he likes me,” Shouyou argued.

“Trust me,” Kouji said. “He likes you.”

Shouyou looked to Izumi, who was nodding sagely. “He definitely likes you. There’s not a doubt in my mind. He cried over not being with you, Shouyou, you can’t deny it. One of you just has to buck up the courage to say so,” he said, nudging the plate of kinako cookies towards Shouyou. He took one obligatorily.

“Okay... Okay, then I don’t just think I’m doing it. I’m definitely going to do it,” he determined, his head bobbing once in resolve.

“Yes!” Izumi yelped, leaping out of his chair. Shouyou hid his face behind his textbook again when Izumi started doing a victory dance around the kitchen. His friends were only getting more embarrassing with age. From the look on Kouji’s face, Shouyou was pretty sure he agreed.

“Have a good night!” Daichi called to Kageyama and Shouyou as he locked up the clubroom.

Shouyou turned around to wave goodbye to his captain. “See you tomorrow!” he said, jumping up and down so Daichi could see him better. Kageyama bumped into him to keep him moving.

“Come on, dumbass,” he grunted. Shouyou stuck his tongue out, but Kageyama didn’t look disturbed by it. Instead, the second they turned out of sight, Kageyama reached out to intertwine their fingers. “Did you want to study together today?” he asked.

“No, but I have to,” Shouyou admitted. He swung their hands between them. Sometimes he was so unbelievably happy to be next to Kageyama, it filled him with energy he didn’t know he had. Right now, he felt like he could jump high enough to touch the clouds.

“What does that mean?”

“It means I don’t want to study, but I probably should. And that I want hang out with you, and that’s what you need to do after practice, so... I have to,” Shouyou explained.

Kageyama squeezed his hand. “Okay. Can we do it at your place? You have a better couch,” he said. He looked hopeful, and Shouyou smiled reassuringly at him.

“Sure,” he replied, “As long as you don’t mind being the one who steers the bike.”

Kageyama shrugged. “I don’t mind at all.”

They made it to the bike rack, and Kageyama immediately set to work on adjusting the seat to his bicycle. He had become an expert at it over the course of the year, and soon enough, he was pedaling while Shouyou rode on the back.

He held onto Kageyama’s shoulders, his grip tightening every time they went over a bump or around a corner. Oddly, Shouyou felt quiet as they cycled along. He liked Kageyama. He wanted to be close to him like this all of the time.

Shouyou suddenly remembered his conversation with Izumi and Kouji. He had promised he would tell Kageyama how he felt, and now, with the other boy’s eyes focused on the road ahead of them, it didn’t seem so intimidating.

He cleared his throat.

“Hey, so... I’ve been having a lot of fun with you lately,” Shouyou started, snuggling a little closer to Kageyama. His arms were wrapped around the other boy’s shoulders, but he still fidgeted with his hands. His nose started to twitch constantly.

Kageyama’s head tilted the smallest bit, and Shouyou could tell he was confused. “Well, duh. We get to play volleyball together all day, that’s the most fun a person can have.”

Shouyou groaned and rested his forehead on the back of Kageyama’s neck. “Yeah, but I meant doing other things. I like being with you, Kageyama. It’s been really nice to practice with you, and talk with you, and study with you. It’s like... when we’re together, I don’t feel nervous. I just feel really happy.” Really and truly sublimely happy.

“Why? Because your Tourette’s is getting better?”

“What? No, because I like you, stupid,” Shouyou said, wincing when Kageyama’s shoulder’s tensed.

The other boy slammed on the bike’s breaks, and Shouyou immediately began apologizing.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, that was stupid, I shouldn’t have said that. I take it back, I take it back,” he said, backtracking. He all but scrambled off the back of the bike, suddenly feeling guilty for holding onto Kageyama. As he spoke, his tics started to flare up in all their usual ways, until there wasn’t a part of his body that wasn’t in some kind of motion. This was potentially the most embarrassing moment of his life.

“Hey... Hey... Hey,” Kageyama said, getting Shouyou’s attention by grabbing onto the front of his shirt and pulling him closer. Shouyou grabbed Kageyama’s wrist, startled. “You can’t take it back, all right? Not when I like you, too.” He broke eye contact with Hinata and stared at the ground. “I’ve always liked you.”

Shouyou made a keening noise, and he wasn’t sure if it was a tic or not. “What?” he squeaked, head twitching to the side.

“Just come here,” Kageyama said, pulling Shouyou into a hug. The bicycle Kageyama was sitting on tipped over, but it was like it didn’t even faze him. He just picked Shouyou up and stepped over it, and Shouyou’s feet dangled in midair.

“You’re so annoyingly tall,” Shouyou complained.

“Shut up, I just want to hug you, okay? I’m happy.”

“You’re an idiot,” Shouyou replied, squirming out of Kageyama’s grasp. He felt a little better when his feet hit the ground. “Now it’s your turn to come here.”

Before Kageyama could speak, Shouyou tugged on his arm so he bent over. Impulsively, he pressed a quick kiss to Kageyama’s cheek, not thinking at all before he did it. He pulled away just as quickly as he leaned in, and Kageyama stared at him with wide eyes.

“You... You’re the best,” he gushed.

Shouyou smiled fondly, throwing himself around Kageyama’s waist. Kageyama was right, hugging was a great thing to do when you were happy. “Thanks. You’re pretty great, too.”

It isn’t too much later that Kageyama and Shouyou are both sprawled out together on Shouyou’s couch. (Kageyama is right: it is much more comfortable than the one at his house.)

Shouyou’s mom still had a rule where Kageyama wasn’t allowed upstairs, but that didn’t stop Shouyou from lying on top of Kageyama with his cheek cushioned on the other boy’s chest. It was nice, really and properly cuddling with Kageyama after practice. They hung out together every day, providing that Kageyama could find a ride home.

“Okay, so how do you spell ‘cucumber’ in English?” Kageyama asked, his fingers trailing lightly up and down Shouyou’s back. He’d been quizzing him on English food words for over an hour now.

Shouyou whined and ducked his face into Kageyama’s t-shirt, relishing in the fact that he was allowed to do this now. “I don’t know... k-u-k-u-m-b-e-r?” he asked.

Kageyama snorted. “No. There’s no k’s in cucumber, just c’s,” he said, dropping the flashcard onto the coffee table. He was leaning them up against Shouyou’s hair so that he could see them and Shouyou couldn’t.

“Ugh, English is stupid.”

“Yeah.”

Shouyou popped up, flashcards flying everywhere. “You know who isn’t stupid?” he asked, his cheeks turning pink as he leaned up on his elbows.

Kageyama quirked his head to the side. “Who?”

“You,” Hinata said with a massive grin. He shifted up so he could pepper Kageyama’s cheek with kisses, making the other boy squirm beneath him.

“Cut it out,” Kageyama said, sounding happier than he usually did.

“Yeah, Nii-chan, gross,” Natsu said, appearing in the doorway to the living room. Shouyou immediately sat up, his face turning eighty shades of red. Natsu had a habit of showing up at the worst times. Shouyou’s blush only grew deeper as he realized he was straddling Kageyama’s stomach. “Mom says dinner is ready,” Natsu chimed, oblivious to how embarrassed her brother was.

Shouyou nodded. “Tell her we’ll be there in a minute,” he replied.

“’Kay,” Natsu agreed, before flitting away to the kitchen. Meanwhile, Shouyou groaned and flopped back down on top of Kageyama, hiding his face in the other boy’s t-shirt again.

“This ‘no privacy’ rule is starting to become an issue,” he complained, and Kageyama laughed.

That was another thing Shouyou got to enjoy ever since they got together: Kageyama laughing.

“I don’t mind it so much. We don’t get up to anything, anyway, and Natsu is funny,” Kageyama promised. It was true. He didn’t know how Kageyama was feeling, but Shouyou wasn’t in any kind of rush to get to properly kissing or going on real dates, or anything like that. He just liked having someone. Maybe they’d do more when they were a little older.

“Sure... You’re eating here, right?”

“If you’ll have me,” Kageyama replied.

“I’ll always have you,” Shouyou promised. He gave Kageyama’s tummy a pat before standing up, extending a hand to help the other boy up. He led the way to the kitchen, and they both thanked Shouyou’s mom for the food before diving in.

His mom watched them skeptically. “So Natsu says you two were kissing?” she asked, and Shouyou knew she only asked to rile him up. It worked though. He threw a pepper at Natsu.

“Just the cheek!” he complained, as if he would try anything else when he had a tiny little sister running around the house.

“Sure,” his mom teased, and Shouyou groaned before dropping his head onto the kitchen table.

Fortunately, Kageyama had grown used to his family after spending so many days in their house. He didn’t seem phased at all, and instead reached out to link their hands together under the table. He squeezed Shouyou’s fingers, and it gave him the encouragement he needed to sit up and continue eating, albeit with his weak hand because Kageyama was holding his dominant one.

“You guys are all the worst. I don’t like any of you,” Shouyou said, his eyes blinking over and over in agitation. Kageyama smirked.

“Well, that’s a lie.”

“Nope, it’s the truth. And you’re the worst of them, I’m done with all of you,” Shouyou complained, rubbing the back of Kageyama’s hand with his thumb to show he was just kidding, even if he was glowering down at his dinner.

The rest of the meal went poorly. The conversation improved –his mom spent the evening talking to Kageyama about his parents’ jobs- but Hinata’s tics were flaring up so it was hard for him to eat. Eventually he gave up, too exhausted to try any longer, and he only managed to pay attention to what was going on around him when Kageyama announced that his dad was there to pick him up.

“I’ll walk you out,” he offered, never once letting go of Kageyama’s hand.

When they got outside, Kageyama’s dad wasn’t quite there yet. Sometimes he texted early so that Kageyama would be out on the sidewalk waiting for him when he pulled up. Shouyou was quiet for a moment.

“Hey... What... What do you think of my Tourette’s?” he asked, looking at Kageyama curiously. He had been too nervous to bring it up for awhile, but he had literally just spent the third afternoon in a row squeaking and twitching on top of Kageyama while they attempted to study. He needed to know how it was affecting his and Kageyama’s relationship.

“What do you mean?” Kageyama asked.

Shouyou sighed, scratching the back of his neck while his head twisted to the side and his nose crinkled. He had to let go of Kageyama’s hand because his arms were flapping too hard at his sides. “I mean, like... does it annoy you? Is it embarrassing for you to be with me? Like... like how do you feel about it?” he asked. Kageyama’s dad would be there any second, and he needed an answer.

Kageyama reached out to put a calming hand on Shouyou’s head, but Shouyou flinched away. He sighed. “Well, I hate it because I know it makes you feel bad about yourself,” Kageyama said. “And I know it makes you tired and anxious, and it gets in the way of us holding hands or sitting close together sometimes, and all of those things are bad things,” he said.

Shouyou felt tears prickle his eyes. “Oh.”

“I wasn’t done,” Kageyama said, his mouth twitching in annoyance. “I don’t like it because of how it makes you feel, but it doesn’t bother me. All the twitching and squeaking and shouting... I’m used to it -like white noise- and honestly, when I’m not around you, I miss it.”

Shouyou looked up at Kageyama hopefully. “You miss it?” he asked, trying not to let his face tic too much and failing miserably. “But I look stupid.”

“You don’t look stupid,” Kageyama replied immediately. “Everyone scrunches their nose, and blinks their eyes, and jumps up and down... You just do those things more often. And I do miss it. It means that you’re not with me, and... and I dunno. I like you, I spend most of my day with you, so it feels weird when you’re not there.”

Shouyou took a deep breath. “Tobio.”

“What?” Kageyama asked, blushing. His ears always turned pink when Shouyou called him by his first name.

“You’re sure it’s not embarrassing to be with me?” he asked. A car pulled up to the side of the house, and he knew it was Kageyama’s dad. Kageyama frowned and reached out tentatively, but this time Shouyou allowed him to run his hands through his hair.

“Of course not. I’m lucky to have you.” Kageyama looked torn. “Shouyou,” he tacked onto the end, hesitantly using his first name.

Shouyou closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Kageyama’s dad honked his horn, telling his son to hurry up. “I wish you didn’t have to go,” he said, and Kageyama grinned weakly at him.

“Don’t be stupid. I’ll see you tomorrow. I’ll beat you to the gym,” he promised, giving Shouyou’s head a quick scratch before sweeping his fringe out of his face and leaving to get in his dad’s car. Shouyou blushed and watched as Kageyama’s car drove away.

He took a shaky breath. Kageyama was right. He would see him tomorrow, and hopefully every day after. And maybe one day, he’d grow out of Tourette’s with Kageyama walking with him every step of the way, and they could both miss it together.

But for now, twitching wasn’t so bad with Kageyama by his side.