Chapter Text
For the fourth time this week (out of four days), Kageyama was late to practice. And Ennoshita, Karasuno’s captain, was not happy. Now if this were happening a year earlier, when they were still first years, Daichi would not have been angrily tapping his foot on the gym floor like their new black haired captain was. Really, Hinata was sure the Chikara was scarier than Daichi on so many levels.
He looked out the window with a groan, Tanaka coming to the spiker’s aid. “Another girl?” Hinata nodded and then, stopped, looking at her closely when he recognized who she was. The short brown hair and bright blue eyes told him everything.
“I know her! She went to my old junior high, she’s a first year!”
“So he’s getting first year chicks too? Oh man, how the fuck does he do it?” Nishinoya sighed in admiration before standing up straight. “Not that Asahi isn’t a total goddamn beast!” After that, he was punched in the shoulder by his best friend and the vice captain of the team. “Ryuu!” There was a collection of laughs and then silence as Kageyama stepped in.
“You were watching?” The three of the guilty party nodded slowly before Hinata explained he knew the girl that was talking to the setter previous to his entry. “She seems like every other girl from every other letter I get. Ugh,” he mumbled, grabbing a ball from the cart. “Can we just start practice, captain?”
“Great idea! Let’s stop talking about girls and start hitting some balls!” Immediately after his comment, Nishinoya and Tanaka practically fell onto the floor in laughter, going as far as to start crying. Under the ruckus, Nishinoya coughed out something about wanting to send that comment to their previous third years who were now graduated. “I’m not saying it again, just- Laps!!” Ennoshita barked out the command, the entire team starting to jog around the court. The captain made sure to take one step on each of the obnoxious boys first.
After practice was over, Kageyama started pulling out letter after letter from his bag. “There are like, 69 of those, holy shit!” Another punch to the libero’s shoulder from Tanaka. They both laughed it off, leaving the club room as Kageyama stuffed his shoes into the volleyball bag. Once the task was completed, he met Hinata outside and the two began their trek home for the night.
Upon arriving at home, Hinata went straight to his room, stifling giggles from his overly-curious and somewhat pesky mother. All he got was, luckily, an amused smirk from her. Now the door of his room was shut, he sat at his desk, pulling out piece of lined paper and a nice, black ballpoint pen. After examining the paper, he began to write.
Dear Kageyama-kun,
I want to make this quick, I have a very big crush on you because you are very pretty and I see you with your friends. You also seem really kind to me! I would love if we could maybe get together sometime!
Hinata paused, thinking of how to sign it. A minute went by and then it clicked in his mind.
- Unknown X
The second year clicked the pen to close it and pulled out a nice orange envelope, placing the letter inside. With a quick lick across the top, he sealed it and placed the note in his bag until he could get to Kageyama’s locker tomorrow morning.
These silly confession letters went on for another week or so, it was basically the same thing over and over, except he would give hints as to who this fake girl was. They were little things, like “I like the color blue!” or “My favorite food is strawberry shortcake!”, the simple facts of life.
However, one afternoon when Kageyama stalked into the gym looking extra pissed off, he snapped at Tsukishima his answer to “What’s wrong with you, King?”
“I keep getting this mystery letters from this girl! She won’t tell me her name and she keeps saying she wanted to meet up but I don’t know when or where!” There was a snicker from the middle blocker, but it was dissolved quickly when the volleyball was picked up into the setter’s hand. Kageyama was barked at by Ennoshita to put the ball down, which he did, and then the team began warmups.
Every now and then you could hear Kageyama grumbling about those letters and their obnoxious orange envelopes or the weird handwriting or just how annoying they are to get day after day. It was hilarious to Hinata, he’d have to hold back his laughter. The complaining got to the point where it was almost unbearable to not laugh at. In fact, it would get even better when he found another one in his locker the next day!
And thus the next day came, and so did the furious Kageyama. “She’s coming to my next game!!” He screamed upon entering the gym. All five of the first years were cackling, hunched over and crying, along with Nishinoya and Tanaka. Tsukishima and Yamaguchi were bawling hysterically, and Hinata had to sit down he was laughing so hard. Ennoshita, Narita and Kinoshita were all holding back their laughter, trying to be mature.
“You’re the next Oikawa Tooru, Kageyama!” Tanaka wiped the tears from his eyes, the sentence coming out between his howls of laughter. Nishinoya almost choked at that comment, taking it to his own to try and get a drink. That went unsuccessful as he ended up having to spit it out on the sidewalk outside the gym because of Tanaka’s comment, “Maybe we can get Hinata to be the next grumpy ace like Seijoh’s old number four!”
After practice, Hinata was taking off his knee pads and slipping on his uniform shoes when Kageyama looked at him out of the corner of his eyes. Like a brick, he was slapped in the face at the sight of an orange corner sticking out of his bag. So it’s HIM. He grunted to himself, hoisting his bag onto his shoulder. “Hinata, I’ll be outside.” The short spiker confirmed that he heard, and Kageyama walked out.
The next day when Kageyama found a brand new letter in his locker, he opened and read it, like usual.
Dear, Kageyama-kun,
I found out that you are a setter! I cannot wait to see you play at your next game! Maybe afterwards we can meet outside and hang out! I think it would be fun!
- Unknown X
He grinned, demon-like of course, and stuffed the paper back into its orange envelope. In one swift movement he pulled out a pen, scribbling on the back of it “What the fuck, Hinata”. Hurriedly, he slid the note into the decoy’s locker, waiting to chaos to unfold inside his tiny, dumbass mind.
Before class, Hinata stopped at his locker. And what fell out was the definition of sheer terror. This was just as bad as when he smacked Kageyama in the back of the head during their first practice match together. The orange envelope was picked up off the floor and Hinata saw four words on it. Kageyama knew.
For the rest of the day, Hinata had the worst case of paranoia that anybody would ever spectate. The setter never looked at him during class, mainly because he slept instead, and then when Hinata went to change, Kageyama wasn’t there.
Trembling slightly, Hinata stepped cautiously into the gym, looking to his right: nobody. The second he looked to his left he was smacked in the forehead with a volleyball. He shook his head, seeing Kageyama right in front of his face. The setter leaned down, making the spiker shrink, the look on his face was worse than Ennoshita’s when he was angry with his vice captain and libero. “Romance and volleyball do not mix. You are going to wait. Do you understand?” Hinata nodded his head at a rate of about 100 nods/second. Slowly, Kageyama stood up straight and walked to go shag the ball across the gym. As he turned his back to Hinata, the decoy took it to himself to rub his head and mumble nonsense.
There were rows of students, all decked out in the tradition black coat black pants uniform, seated by class. The principal adjusted his wig and then began calling up students. Yachi Hitoka, their very adorable and lovely manager got to retrieve her diploma in it’s tube right away, being in Class 5. Their entire old team from the newest first years through the era of Suga, Daichi and Asahi all erupted from the crowd for her. Her face was bright red and her steps were forced as her legs quivered, but once she sat down, she turned and winked at all of the friends in the stands.
They proceeded to do this for Tsukishima, who took it much better than their manager, and Yamaguchi, who looked about to collapse when he was hit with a rose from Tanaka. Upon the principal announcing Hinata’s name, they all started screaming about him being the best decoy and the ace. It went as far as Asahi and Tanaka chanting “ace” from the stands. Oh the tradition of being the ace, it sure was wild. Asahi’s deep voice was making a couple of the third year girls around where Hinata had been sitting shake in fear of what monster was in the stands. Hinata’s face was about as bright as the Nekoma uniform at the cheers, and as Hinata looked in the stands he saw Kenma waving to him sitting beside Kuroo.
Finally, the pressure was off and Hinata sat down again, one of the girls beside him was dabbing her face. He quietly apologized and then waited for the principal to call the last team member.
“Kageyama, Tobio,” was spoken into the mic and as he stood up, anybody could hear Sugawara shout “I love you, Kageyama! Setters for life!” Kageyama grew a slight blush and grabbed his tube containing the diploma, leaving the stage quickly, the cheers dying down from the stands.
Graduation came to a close and all of the student who were now finished with school stood on their chairs, one girl counted a very loud “One, two, three!” before the entire class of 2018 screamed out “Karasuno!!”.
Hinata began walking through the crowds in search of the team and his friends, finding Kageyama along his way. Without a chance to say anything about how happy or sad he was about finishing school, he was pulled into a hug by Kageyama. It was tight, but Hinata wrapped his arms around Kageyama anyways, even though he was confused by what the hell Kageyama was doing. As he let go of Hinata, Kageyama reached into his coat, pulling out and orange envelope, handing it to him. On the paper there were four words; “What the fuck, Hinata”. Hinata felt like he was going to collapse at the sight of this, and actually grabbed Kageyama’s arm in case that was going to happen.
When he realized he wasn’t going to fall to the floor in a faint, Hinata looked at his setter dead in the eyes and whispered “What the fuck, Kageyama?”
“I said you were going to wait, remember?” At the comment, Hinata grew bright red, hiding his face in Kageyama’s shoulder using the shoujo manga tactic of hugging. Slowly, he felt Kageyama’s arms encircle him, and heard a whispered “You dumbass.”