Roots

by paperwetwithink

Summary:

5 times Kageyama pulls Hinata's hair, and the 1 time Hinata pulls his.

Notes:

hi all! new to fic writing and this is my first one, hope you enjoy :)

Disclaimer: I do not own Haikyuu!! or any of the related characters. The Haikyuu!! series is created by Haruichi Furudate. This story is a work of fanfiction and is meant for entertainment only. I am not making profit from this story.

The first time Kageyama actually realises how soft Hinata’s hair is, he’s pulling on it.

He notices, even though he’s busy scolding Hinata for being annoying, for not listening. Their practice match that afternoon had been going well, and now that Kageyama thinks about it, even as he’s tugging on red-gold strands so hard he can feel them loosening between his fingers, he’s sure that that’s why he’s so mad right now. It’s different when they’re not playing as well; there’s less to save, less to lose. Now they’re blowing a seven-nothing lead against their once-teammates, the Karasuno alumni who had so graciously agreed to play a couple of matches with them, and Kageyama is angry.

He’s humiliated. He doesn’t like to lose at the best of times, least of all to people who know he can do better than this.

“How many times do I have to say it?” Kageyama yells, right in Hinata’s face. “Pay attention to your team, not just the goddamn ball!”

“I’m trying!” Hinata yells back, fingers tight around Kageyama’s wrist, attempting to loosen his grip. “Jesus, stop pulling so hard!”

And for some reason, Kageyama doesn’t. He might even pull harder. There’s too much happening inside him. Kageyama’s senses are open enough as it is, primed ready to catalogue the court and make his next move, concoct his next instruction. The very last thing he needed right now was for Hinata to get caught up in his usual frenzy, his bloodlust for the ball, and send one of their kouhais flying. Hinata hadn’t even called out for the ball. That happens sometimes, when his body is too fast even for his own mind. It’ll move before his thoughts, before his voice. It’s annoying, but Kageyama can handle it when Hinata does something good, makes a dicey receive or hits a shocking spike.

He very much can’t handle it when Hinata knocks into one of their first years, whose name Kageyama can’t even remember right now because he’s so goddamn pissed, and decks the literal snot out of him. Not to mention the poor little shit had actually called for the ball.

And that’s 12-9 to their alumni, now. It’s not even too bad a lead, it’s definitely salvageable, but Kageyama has a lot riding on this. Sure, he gave himself all that’s riding on this, but that’s not the point. Point is, there’s pressure, and Kageyama doesn’t want to look across the net to see Sugawara, Daichi, Nishinoya, Tanaka, and Asahi worrying about him. So, he fills his vision with Hinata’s red, frustrated, pained face and keeps his grip rigid.

It’s about then that Kageyama notices it. The softness. Hinata’s hair is so easy to pull out. Even as he’s messing it up, deadening the strands, they are pillowy-soft under his touch, yielding to it. That’s something that Kageyama’s too-open nerves do not need to take note of at the moment, but now that they have, Kageyama can’t stop thinking about it. Whenever he moves his hand a fraction of an inch, Hinata’s hair brushes almost lovingly against it, strands tickling, kissing. It’s the softest thing that Kageyama has ever touched. The only thing that comes close is his favourite school sweater, and that’s had time to get worn, lived in. Hinata’s hair feels like it came out of his scalp lived in.

So when Kageyama feels hands wrapping around his waist and tugging, hands he hasn’t felt in a while but that feel all too familiar all the same, he finds he doesn’t actually want to let go. Partly because he doesn’t want to face the augmented embarrassment that is inevitable when he is separated from Hinata, mostly because Hinata’s hair feels… pretty under his hand. Kageyama has touched it (yanked on it) so many times before, how doesn’t he know this already?

“Cut it out!” Daichi barks in his ear, strong arms bruising around Kageyama’s waist. “You’re not a first year anymore, quit being so damn childish!”

It burns, the embarrassment. Kageyama’s whole body sets alight with it. It takes Tanaka’s help to fully detach him, at which point Kageyama goes so limp he almost joins… whoever that is on the floor, he still can’t remember the name. Physically he’s clocked out, but his mind works overtime to compensate.

“What the hell, man,” Tanaka grits out, hands tight and chiding on Kageyama’s shoulders. “You still do this shit?”

“I hate it when he doesn’t listen to me,” Kageyama mutters. His voice, his thoughts, he is a grenade, unlimited potential to be volatile, and he doesn’t know who’s holding the pin but he figures they won’t be able to much longer.

“Kageyama.” That’s Suga, standing on the other side of the net still. This is exactly what Kageyama hadn’t wanted to see when he looked over there. No, it’s worse; Suga doesn’t look pitying, he looks wary. “This is not how you get people to hear you. You know that.”

Hear. Not listen to, hear.

Kageyama sighs, shakes off the hands and arms on him. He’s turning to Hinata, ready to attempt some semblance of an apology, but Hinata is already looking at him. Nishinoya is petting through his hair, smoothing down the strands. Asahi is helping the stunned but seemingly uninjured first year off the floor. Kageyama will send an apology that way, too.

But not before he wraps his mind around the look Hinata is giving him. His eyes are wet but he doesn’t look like he’s about to cry. Not from pain, at least, even though he’s wincing as Noya cards gentle fingers through the sore spots on his scalp. No, Hinata’s eyes are brimming with something else, something tactile, something that yearns. Kageyama’s attempt to swallow gets caught in his throat and his windpipe hugs his saliva tight.

Hinata doesn’t look like he needs an apology. He looks like he’s saying something.

I’ve got your pin, Tobio.

*

Soon after that incident, Kageyama decides he doesn’t ever want to see tears in Hinata’s eyes again, not if he’s the one causing them. The look on Hinata’s face stays with Kageyama for weeks, even after he has apologised to his former senpais, to his peers, to his kouhais. Suga had had to sit him down for a long chat sometime afterwards (they do this when they can, catch-up, borderline-therapy sessions, because Kageyama trusts Suga more than he trusts himself). Kageyama still doesn’t know how Suga manages to admonish him and soothe all his worries in the same sentence, but he won’t ask. So long as Suga keeps doing it, he’s fine.

Or, well, he’s supposed to be. Suga says that the guilt will stop choking him with time, but Kageyama hadn’t realised the indefinite nature of that promise. Even months later, he can’t really look at Hinata for too long without remembering his welling eyes, his flushed face, Noya stroking through his hair, the determined set to his mouth that showed he commanded not just total control of the chaos, but total control of the Tobio-tornado causing it.

Reined in. Kageyama had felt reined in, and Hinata hadn’t even had to say anything to do it. It’s enough to coax him into giving Hinata a somewhat wide berth for a while, until the wound, whatever and wherever it is, heals.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Kageyama thinks he heard that once. He doesn’t know if it’s an apt expression for the longing he feels, but he wants to touch Hinata’s hair again far more than he ever has before.

But whenever that thought arises, another one accompanies it; Kageyama can’t be gentle with him. Hinata would never let Kageyama’s hands near his head again after all the damage they’ve done. Kageyama had looked down at his palms that fateful day and seen strands of orange in them. Not many, but enough to make Asahi’s gentle suggestion of “Maybe sit out for the rest of the game” unnecessary; Kageyama would have done it anyway.

Still. Kageyama wants to touch it again. He doesn’t like that everyone else gets to: Yachi, Yamaguchi, Noya, Suga, even Tsukishima once. Admittedly, that last one had been to turn Hinata’s body around by the back of the head and nudge him away when Hinata had been too excitable for no reason (again). And the fact that Kageyama can resent contact like that, just because he has behaved so badly he can’t do it himself, speaks volumes. Speaks volumes that Kageyama wants to cover his ears against.

But, as usual, Suga had been right. These things take time.

And Kageyama does get to touch Hinata’s hair again.

It’s during a timeout, their match against Inarizaki High shuddering to a stop at the whistle’s keen. The noise sets Kageyama more on edge than he already is but he’s thankful for it. This is getting too close. Once again, Karasuno can’t maintain the gap. Every inch they gain, Inarizaki takes a mile. They've always been good but Kageyama doesn’t know when they got this good. He also doesn’t care. He cares about that 1-point gap. He cares that it has stayed a 1-point gap all the way into the third set.

“Get water if you need it,” Kageyama barks, jerking his head to the benches, to the bottles of water and clumps of towels piled up by Ukai and Takeda-sensei’s feet. “No more timeouts after this, and I need you playing your best.” He pauses. “Better than your best. So drink up.”

The team scurries under the instruction of their captain. Kageyama looks at the polished wood floor. His team is so exhausted, so soaked with their effort, they’re leaving droplets of perspiration all over the floorboards. Not for the first time, Kageyama feels his chest constrict. Concern is new to him. He’s still getting used to it; caring for others. Caring about them. But he’s getting better, becoming more attuned. Like he said, he needs to pay attention to his team. He’ll be damned if he can’t follow his own advice.

He takes a long sip from his own bottle and drops it onto his towel, then calls his panting teammates over with a whistle. They hurry over to him. Sometimes it’s hard to take the weight of their gazes on his shoulders. Actually, it’s always hard. But now, this close to a win, one of the last opportunities he has to play with this team, something else buoys the pressure up; exhilaration.

“We are this close.” Sure, they’ve been this close all game, but Kageyama isn’t going to lose his head over a simple fact like that. Not today. “We’re going to get back on the court and we’re not getting off it until that scoreboard,” he points, “has a 25 under our name, and a 23 under theirs.”

Kageyama surveys his team. Disproportionate parts hopeful, exhausted, impassioned, terrified. He sets his face and feels his mouth grin.

“Make it happen.”

“RIGHT!” his team yells their confirmation, their trust, back at him.

They disperse, stretching out the kinks in their legs and arms and necks on the way back to the court. Kageyama catches Ukai’s eye. Receives a smile and a nod in return. Gives a nod back (and a smile, too, apparently. He thinks it might still be on his face, if a little too flinty).

Across the net, Inarizaki screams their own affirmative to whatever their captain has told them. Kageyama watches them head back to the court. He can see their sweat dripping too, from all the way over here. Sweat courses down his own back in response to the challenge.

And then Hinata walks past him.

Hinata’s entire body is heaving, even though they’ve been in timeout for a couple of minutes now. Kageyama stares as Hinata’s jersey stretches taut over his biceps and shoulder blades with every inhale, then flutters away from his skin with every exhale. Even as Kageyama peruses him, Hinata lifts a glistening arm to his mouth and wipes the corner of it with the back of his hand. All that probably achieved was a transfer of sweat from one place to another, and yet while Kageyama watches, he can’t help but be glad that Hinata isn’t an opponent. He is terrifying.

So, Kageyama doesn’t know why he walks over, places his hand in Hinata’s hair, and tugs. Lightly. As gently as he’s capable of.

“Oi, Hinata.”

Hinata jerks instantly, whipping around to face Kageyama, craning his neck like he wants to get away from Kageyama’s hand. Just like Kageyama had worried would happen. But then Hinata must realise that Kageyama isn’t pulling, isn’t clenching the strands in his fist. It’s a barely-there touch in comparison. And Hinata settles. Kageyama feels the tension bleed out of his muscles. He even dares to think that Hinata might push his head up into Kageyama’s palm. So, so eager to hear what he has to say.

“What?” Hinata asks.

Hinata’s voice got deeper. It happened slowly over the three years, so slowly Kageyama couldn’t pinpoint when each change occurred. It’s not as deep as his own voice (not many voices are), but it’s deep enough to be startling on Hinata’s baby face. It’s got so many pitches, and Hinata is typically so energetic that even his broken voice sits in the higher registers, usually. But sometimes, it goes low like this. Expectant. Kageyama wonders if (hopes that) it’s just for him.

“We’re not playing nice anymore.”

Hinata cocks his head like, We’ve been playing nice?

“Kentaro’s gonna take my next set,” Kageyama continues, referring to one of the second years, one of their wing spikers. “He’s fast, he’ll get here in time.”

Hinata nods, understanding, but still expectant. He’s wondering what Kageyama is telling him this for. Wondering why he isn’t speaking to the rest of the team, too. What’s he got planned for Hinata?

Kageyama fills him in. “At my signal, jump as high as you can. Higher than you have before.” He jerks his thumb to the other side of the net. “Give them something to stare at.”

At the look in Hinata’s eyes, Kageyama almost wishes he wasn’t as close as he is. When Hinata glows, the impact radius is vast. Being in close proximity like this makes you vulnerable to sunburn, heatstroke, other heat-related incidents. Still, Kageyama confirms for himself once again that he would take all kinds of injuries just for Hinata to look at him like this.

“Okay,” Hinata nods. Then he cocks his head again. The movement pushes his soft, soft hair further up against Kageyama’s palm. “Signal?”

Kageyama swallows. “You won’t miss it.”

Hinata nods again. He gets this different look in his eyes, now. Challenging, provoking. Scheming. His smile pokes into one cheek more than it does the other one, and his brows narrow.

“You’re not gonna toss to me?”

Kageyama curls his fingers. If it weren’t for Hinata’s hair getting in the way, he’d be making a fist. As it happens, he feels his nails graze over Hinata’s scalp. Hinata goes rigid, breathes out shaky, and Kageyama knows he doesn’t even need to rise to the bait. From the blush on Hinata’s face, he figures he has won whatever battle Hinata just tried to start.

So, he says, “I’ll be tossing to you for the rest of your life. You can miss just one.”

“Can you make out later, please?”

Kageyama and Hinata turn their heads so fast they crack their necks. Tsukishima waits with a hand on his cocked hip, glaring them down.

“Gross, Tsukishima,” Hinata grumbles, stamping over to take his place on the court. “We weren’t going to make out.”

“I don’t care. Whatever you weren’t going to do, it can wait. The game can’t.”

Kageyama can count on one hand the amount of times he has admitted to Tsukishima being right about something. He’s hesitant to add this time to the list, but he can’t help it. The game can never wait.

So, the whistle blows. The game restarts. And, in the middle of one of the most intense rallies Kageyama has ever played, he shouts, “HINATA!” at the top of his lungs. Hears Hinata’s pounding footsteps, shuddering underneath a response of, “Give it to me!” Watches as Hinata fucking soars, flies so high Kageyama looks up and only sees the soles of his feet. Grins as Inarizaki’s blockers jump up to try and match the vertical.

Kageyama realises Hinata has jumped so high, he really could toss to him. Nobody’s blocking a spike from all the way up there. But he’d given Hinata a plan, and so far, Hinata has listened to him. No, not listened to him. Heard him.

As much as Kageyama’s body yearns to do otherwise, he jumps, leans back instead of forward, and tosses the ball to Kentaro. As suspected, Kentaro is in the air, too, but not as high as Hinata. Nowhere near as high as Hinata.

When the ball rips downwards and smacks into the middle of the court, on the other side of the net, right past the appalled faces of Inarizaki’s team, Kageyama doesn’t scream for Kentaro. The rest of the team does that. He doesn’t scream ‘Alright!’ or ‘Let’s go!’ or ‘Nice kill!’ The rest of the team does that, too.

Kageyama screams Hinata’s name again. And Hinata screams his.

*

Very easily, perhaps too easily, Hinata’s hair becomes synonymous with comfort.

It actually becomes synonymous with a lot of things, but comfort is top of that list, Kageyama thinks. He’s hard pressed to remember a time when he truly felt comfortable. Comfort is such a privilege. So, when touching Hinata’s hair makes him feel warm, sated, not as far as happy but a step or two below it, he has a bit of a crisis over it. What is this feeling it’s giving him, and why does he deserve to have it?

As mellow as Hinata’s hair makes Kageyama feel, it’s jarring that the next time he touches it, it’s on the heels of their most crushing loss in months. Disappointment wracks Kageyama wholly, and that? That’s a feeling Kageyama is very certain he deserves to have.

Contrary to popular belief, he’s not a robot. He remembers what he promised Hinata in first year, one of the many promises they’d made in those fledgling months: I won’t apologise anymore. I won’t throw any more tosses that I have to apologise for. He’d meant it at the time, and every day since. But when he watched that final score change, the board beaming his defeat in glaring neon like he couldn’t fucking see it from all the way down here, like he hadn’t just seen it happen right across the net, Kageyama had been ready to go back on his word. All he’d wanted to do was apologise. The disappointment is his to bear, his to swallow, choke on, only augmented when he realises how Hinata will react if Kageyama breathes a word of this to him. Kageyama can just about manage his own self-loathing. He will not stand for… will not stand under Hinata’s.

He cocoons himself on the way back to Karasuno, barely breathing a word or sparing a glance to the Itachiyama Institute players that wave them off. They’re smiling, pleasant, and all Kageyama can see in every handshake, every farewell, is their win, his loss. His mouth goes stale, lips rubbed dry and cracked. He sits in the back of the bus and nobody tries to sit next to him.

It doesn’t get much better when they arrive. Everyone goes home, exhausted to such an intense degree that the defeat doesn’t even register. Kageyama sits on the front step of the gym and wishes he could say the same. He wishes he was tired of being awake and not just tired of losing.

Nighttime stretches over Kageyama’s head and weighs heavy. Secures the loss until Kageyama feels it in the backs of his eyes, too.

“You gonna start sleeping in the gym, Kageyama-kun?”

Kageyama dares to glance up at Hinata’s drawn, tired face. He sucks his lips into his mouth and bites down.

“I know you like volleyball, but that’s a bit too much, don’t you think?” Hinata continues, dropping his gym bag and sitting next to Kageyama on the step.

If Kageyama says anything right now, it will not be nice. He isn’t ready to occupy a space with someone at the moment, let alone have a civil conversation with them. Or any conversation. All he’d do is yell, project, make it all too clear how poorly he thinks he has done. As if it isn’t clear enough.

He stays quiet, stares at the ground between his shoes, and hopes the downward movement of his eyes doesn’t let tears leak out.

Hinata stays quiet a moment or two longer. Kageyama feels every atom of air that Hinata’s body takes up, feels them more than he feels his own.

“Do you remember what you said?” Hinata asks after a while.

Kageyama has to swallow two times before he can find the frequency and amplitude of his voice that keeps it somewhat level.

“When?” Fuck, it’s just one word, why is it so hard to say and not scream?

“First year,” Hinata kind of clarifies.

“I said a lot of things first year,” Kageyama says, and he’s getting closer to screaming with every syllable.

“You know,” Hinata says.

That’s enough. It’s not just enough, it’s too much. Kageyama whips his head around, fire in his eyes and up his throat, face scrunched so tight with his shame-turned-anger that he gives himself a headache. His mouth flies open, ready to let loose any barrage of words that will get Hinata to leave him alone, to understand that now is not the time. Now is never the time.

Hinata is just… looking at him. If Kageyama didn’t know any better, Hinata would almost look bored. Bored of him. Tired of him. Kageyama’s throat clicks, his face falls, and no words come out.

When he blinks more tears out of his eyes (because that downward movement from before had indeed let some leak out), Kageyama’s vision clears. Hinata looks very carefully placid, but purposeful. Intent on something. On Kageyama. Kageyama doesn’t think Hinata blinks the entire time he looks at him.

Under the attention, Kageyama says the very words Hinata is looking for, the ones that of course Hinata knows he knows, because Kageyama had just been thinking of them, and one of the many things he shares with Hinata is a brain cell.

“I won’t apologise anymore,” Kageyama whispers, voice cracking on every other word. “I won’t throw anymore tosses that I have to apologise for.”

Hinata nods, eyes closing as he does it like he’s so damn content, and Kageyama shivers.

“Yeah,” Hinata says. “And what had I said, a few days before that?”

This one hurts worse. Kageyama had never meant to imply this. Sometimes he wishes his disappointment could be solely his own.

“‘Don’t make it sound like tossing to me was a mistake,’” Kageyama supplies. His eyes are dry from fear.

“That’s right,” Hinata says. “So, don’t do it. I’m not going to let you do it.”

And there’s the confirmation. Kageyama’s disappointment never can be his own, not alone. If he directs it at himself, he directs it at Hinata, too. At his whole team. Hinata isn’t going to let him drown in his sorrows because he knows Kageyama would pull everyone else underwater with him.

Kageyama sighs, and with it leaches out the depth of his unhappiness. But it just leaves him hollow. How is it that when all his bad feelings go away, he is left with nothing? Does he only have badness inside of him?

He’s so caught up in the question that he doesn’t know what it does to his face. He doesn’t know what he’s letting Hinata see. So, when Hinata leans forward, fills Kageyama’s view with his face, Kageyama goes rigid with confusion.

“When we win, we win together.” Hinata almost spits it out with his passion. “When we lose, we lose together.” When Kageyama says nothing, Hinata’s brows cross right the way down over his eyes and he shifts even closer. “Together.”

Kageyama said it already; he’s still getting used to caring for and about others. But what he will never get used to is having others care for and about him.

When Kageyama starts crying again, he doesn’t actually feel the tears happen. He just feels his face get wet. Before, he hadn’t felt the night breeze on his face. Now it’s cold, biting, all over his cheeks. He closes his eyes and that’s when he feels the tears seep out.

It’s freezing on his wet cheekbones until it isn’t. Until it’s warm, almost glowingly so. Kageyama opens his eyes and Hinata’s hands are framing his vision. His palms are cupping Kageyama’s face and his thumbs are swiping the tears from Kageyama’s cheeks.

“Stupid Kageyama,” he mutters, hushed, like if he speaks any louder his own tears will come out, or maybe like more of Kageyama’s will follow and ruin his efforts.

Kageyama nods his agreement. “Stupid Kageyama.”

Hinata honest to god giggles.

Kageyama scorches.

He gets an idea. Hinata is pretty much eye-level with him (are their torsos really that close in length? That sucks). Kageyama can’t really see the top of Hinata’s head as well as he usually can. He can’t touch his hair from there.

He goes underneath instead.

Hinata’s lips pop open as Kageyama trails his fingers from the nape of Hinata’s neck, up the soft, sweat-shaggy hair at his hairline. Kageyama goes up, up, up, until his palm cups the back of Hinata’s head, fingers swathed in red-gold that, now, in the nighttime lack-of-light, looks almost as black as Kageyama’s own.

Again, Kageyama feels comfortable. His tears are still drying on his cheeks, under the pads of Hinata’s fingers, and yet, he feels comfortable.

He just holds Hinata close, palm unmoving and very warm in Hinata’s soft, cosy hair. Hinata doesn’t want him to be alone? Fine. Hinata can take up that responsibility himself.

Kageyama is more than a little shocked when Hinata creeps forward and kisses him, but the warm feeling in his belly is also pretty heavy this time around, not bubbly and light like it usually is. So heavy that he can’t move away.

He doesn’t want to move away. With every millisecond of this timid, dry-lipped kiss, the warmth magnifies, metastasises. Spreads like butter into every inch of Kageyama’s body, inside and out. It cooks the tears right off his face.

Hinata pulls away as much as Kageyama’s stock-still hand on the back of his head will let him, and gulps.

“Was that okay?” he asks.

Kageyama is very glad he doesn’t have to think about it, because he’s pretty sure he will never be able to think again. “Yes.”

For some reason, that makes Hinata’s face flush, just about visible when he’s this close, though it’s still so dark around them.

“Okay. Good!” he says. And leans forward to do it again.

Hinata tastes like Kageyama imagines a space heater would; electric, humming, thrummy. Sharp and sweet from his energy drink. Kageyama thinks if he gets inside Hinata’s mouth, he might be able to guess the flavour.

He tries. Keeps Hinata’s head in his palm and tilts to the side, coaxing Hinata’s mouth open. Hinata makes the softest, sweetest, surprised noise at this. He squeezes Kageyama’s cheeks, draws him closer, accepts him. Kageyama presses his lips to Hinata’s, wraps them around Hinata’s bottom lip, then the top. They’re parted from each other so it’s not hard to do. Hinata’s tongue flicks out to wet them like he’s forgotten Kageyama is right there, like he’s forgotten what his tongue will touch. Hinata jolts a little, tries to pull his tongue back into his mouth, but Kageyama flicks his own inside and follows it. Touches the tip of it to Hinata’s, lets him know it’s okay. This is all okay.

Kageyama lets his fingers move in Hinata’s hair, now, drawing small circles almost as soft as the hair itself, massaging through it. Every pass of his fingertips draws more gasps from Hinata’s mouth, which opens it wider. Kageyama can feel his own chin jutting forward with his eagerness to keep kissing. It’s like he’s licking a plate up, or something, like he’s so desperate to eat Hinata clean. He’s fairly certain the heat in his belly isn’t just because of how Hinata’s hair feels in his hand, not anymore.

Lungs straining, Kageyama pulls back. The noise that their separating mouths and tongues makes is the reality check. Kageyama’s face flames all the way from (somewhat wet) chin to hairline. He lets Hinata’s head go and the warmth dissipates immediately.

“What the fuck,” he whispers. “What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck.”

“Don’t freak out!” Hinata wails, hands coming away from Kageyama’s face and hovering in midair, classic surrender. His hair looks so messy. No, it always looks messy. Now it looks mussed. “Everything’s fine! You… you said it was okay.”

Hinata has the audacity to sound crestfallen. When Kageyama pauses his crisis to survey Hinata, he confirms that he looks crestfallen, too. Kageyama had meant it when he said he never wanted to be the reason for Hinata’s tears again. It’s looking like he’s about to fail miserably at that.

“It was,” Kageyama says, trying to temper his voice again. “It is. Okay.”

Hinata stares at him sceptically, probably because his voice doesn’t make it sound like it’s okay. Kageyama says something that will prove it.

“Thank you, Hinata.”

It seems to do the trick. It also seems to give Hinata an aneurysm.

“Uh,” is all he says for a bit. Kageyama is about to start griping like usual, something along the lines of jesus I’m not that much of an asshole, stop looking so surprised, when Hinata clears his throat, swallows, and says, “You’re welcome, Kageyama-kun.”

The dumbass probably doesn’t even know what Kageyama is thanking him for. It’s not just for the kiss, though that’s definitely up there on the list of things Kageyama has ever been grateful to Hinata for. It’s for the encouragement. It’s for the bringing Kageyama down just to bring him back up. It’s for the destroying Kageyama more than his own shame had, only to heal him so well it’s like he’d never been broken in the first place. It’s for the being with him when, given the choice, not even Kageyama would have been with himself.

Words fail Kageyama too often to count. Sometimes, though, he doesn’t need a lot of them. ‘Thank you’ is, for now, more than enough.

And when he can’t use his words, he has found his actions will do a lot of the talking for him. He lets them talk now as he inches closer to Hinata, gets two hands in his hair this time, thumbs secure in the hollow at the base of Hinata’s ears, right behind the lobes.

When Hinata lets out a thready “Kageyama…?”, Kageyama makes his actions loud enough to shut it out. He tugs Hinata close and kisses him.

There’s something to be said for being methodical. Kageyama has never kissed anyone before today but he works his lips with as much thought as he can spare beyond fuck, this is nice. Hinata feels nice. He takes things slow, keeping his mouth closed though he can feel Hinata’s mouth trembling like he wants to kiss with tongue again. Like he wants more.

Kageyama doesn’t give it to him. That’s one thing he definitely has practice with; reeling Hinata in. Kageyama is steady and measured with his kisses, feeling out the shape of Hinata’s mouth and pulling back when Hinata tries to open it. Hinata understands after a few more tries that he’s being reprimanded, and he gets stroppy. Kageyama snorts and kisses his complaints quiet.

Tongues had been nice, sure, but Kageyama thinks he likes this more. He likes that there’s control, focus. He likes that as much as he can feel Hinata yearning for more, they’re not being sloppy, not being overcome, overwhelmed. This way, everything has intention. When Kageyama kisses around Hinata’s lower lip, Hinata pouts his mouth in timid little nips against Kageyama’s upper one. When Kageyama drags his bottom lip along the seam of Hinata’s mouth, Hinata closes his lips around it, gently tugging on the skin. It’s a push and pull with purpose. Kageyama likes when things have purpose.

They kiss until the moon climbs another few minutes higher into the sky, and for every one of those minutes, Kageyama strokes through Hinata’s hair, sometimes scratching, mostly massaging. Hinata shivers sometimes, especially when Kageyama drags his nails close to where his messy hair meets the nape of his neck. Kageyama doesn’t do that often because it makes Hinata’s mouth fall open, and he doesn’t want to start kissing with tongues again because he won’t ever stop, and his mother is probably wondering where he is.

“Okay, okay,” Kageyama hisses when Hinata starts to chase after each kiss, deliciously eager but fuck’s sake, it really is getting late. “Enough.”

Hinata sighs, sounding very put-out. Kageyama indulges him with one more chaste kiss before pulling away completely. This time, when he takes his hands out of Hinata’s hair, the warmth inside him remains.

“Ugh, why?” Hinata complains, following Kageyama’s lead when Kageyama reaches down to pick up his discarded bag.

“Because I don’t actually want to sleep in the gym,” Kageyama says, standing up and trying to ignore the fact that the corner of his mouth has perked up.

Hinata looks up at him and ah, yes. This is much more like normal. Kageyama can see the top of Hinata’s head again.

“Did you just make a joke?”

The almost-there smile disappears. “Shut up.”

Hinata cackles. “Ah, is a couple of kisses all you needed to start being funny, Kageyama-kun? If I’d known that I would have done it ages ago.”

“Shut up, Hinata, I’m serious,” Kageyama growls, turning and walking away from the school the more Hinata’s laughter picks up.

“Komedian Kageyama,” Hinata laughs like he’s the comedian. Kageyama wants to throw a fist in his face. Or maybe kiss him again.

He’s a minute or two away from the school gym and still contemplating these options when Hinata’s voice sails through the night air right into Kageyama’s ears.

“Don’t forget, Kageyama! Together!”

Winning together. Losing together. Kissing together. Being together. Together could mean a whole bunch of things. Kageyama wants it to mean every single one of them.

“Together,” he whispers. And smiles.

*

This view.

Kageyama is used to it. The view from the top. Hinata’s hair is getting quite long but it doesn’t look all that different right at the top of his head. A little shaggier, maybe. Kageyama would know any dissimilarities better than anyone, because Hinata is always beside him and Hinata is small and Kageyama is not. Hinata has changed a lot but this view is still more or less the same.

Difference is, Hinata is between his legs now. His lips are dangerously close to the traitor of a hard-on in Kageyama’s school pants. But his hair’s still fire in sunlight. Kageyama could do with the comfort that touching Hinata’s hair usually affords him, but his hands where they’re at right now, clamped on Hinata’s shoulders, are locked so tight and tense that all he’d do is hurt Hinata. All he’d do is pull.

Kageyama keeps his hands where they are and continues to lose a thread of his mind for every pass of Hinata’s mouth over his crotch.

“You look happy to see me, ‘Yama,” Hinata snarks, taking his eyes away from Kageyama’s happiness to gleam up at him.

Mortified, Kageyama glares. “Why are you still talking like you weren’t begging me to let you do this?”

And god, had Hinata begged. Kageyama thinks the question, the plea, had been brimming all day (maybe longer. Maybe as long as it had for Kageyama). Glances all day, sidelong or head-on, like Hinata just couldn’t wait for… something. He’d clued Kageyama in as soon as they got back to Hinata’s room, breezing past Hinata’s smiling mother with a We’re gonna do some homework, we’ll be down later, and an excitable Natsu with an Oh my god, Natsu, he’s here to see me. Hinata had closed his door, backed Kageyama up onto his bed, perched on his lap, and kissed him with lips so wet Kageyama had had to wonder how many times he’d licked them (they’d been chapped from the cold on the way back. No, Kageyama hadn’t been looking).

Kageyama is never one to follow in Hinata’s wake, or at least he’s never one to admit that that’s what he’s doing when he does it, but Hinata kisses him like he’s known how to do it for years rather than a few months. Kageyama struggles to reciprocate with the fervour Hinata demands but he always gives it a good go. He’d settled careful hands on Hinata’s waist, leaned into Hinata’s cupped palms on his face. Kissed him like they didn’t actually have any homework to do.

And Hinata had mouthed along Kageyama’s jaw, kissed sweet and plush up to Kageyama’s ear, and had whispered, “Please let me suck you off. Please, please, please, ‘Yama, let me do it.”

Now, Kageyama doesn’t quite remember what he’d said or done to that, if anything, but it must have been some sort of affirmative, because here Hinata is. Between his legs. Laughing at the faux-angry, actually-mortified glare on Kageyama’s face.

“You want me to shut up, huh?” Hinata teases, palms smoothing up the wrinkles in Kageyama’s trousers, introducing new ones further up, closer to the crease where thigh meets body. “You gonna shut me up with this, Kageyama?”

He cups Kageyama’s straining cock in his palm. Kageyama bites so hard into his lip.

“Just. Get on with it,” Kageyama wheezes.

Hinata does not, in fact, get on with it. He cocks his head to the side until it rests on Kageyama’s knee. His eyes roll with the movement because he doesn’t take them off Kageyama, so Kageyama gets to watch them go wider, like they’re expanding to get a proper look at him from the tilted angle. It’s all eyelashes and doe, careful concern. This is worse than the teasing, the fire.

“We don’t have to do it,” Hinata speaks, turning his head to drop a light kiss to Kageyama’s inner thigh that he’s grateful he can’t really feel through the fabric of his pants. “We don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to. Just let me know, kay?”

At what point, really, did Kageyama start deserving someone like Hinata? He still can’t figure it out, and if Hinata keeps treating him so good and gentle like this, he’ll start going stir crazy without an answer.

He nods. “I want it.”

Hinata beams. “Sure?”

“Yes, dumbass,” Kageyama strops. Then loosens his grip on Hinata’s shoulders to sweep his thumbs in as soft a curve as he can manage along Hinata’s collarbones. “I’m sure.”

Hinata beams wider. Keeps beaming as he reaches for Kageyama’s belt, fingers swift and eager and clumsy as they unbuckle it, threading it off loop from loop. Button pops, zipper drags down, flaps separate, and there Kageyama is. Sort of. His boxers are there but you can’t miss the shape.

The mortification doesn’t go away. Kageyama doesn’t see how it could when he’s this goddamn hard and he hasn’t even been touched properly yet. Hinata looks pleased as punch about it, face red like someone’s lighting matches to his insides. If steam starts coming out of Hinata’s ears, Kageyama somehow doesn’t think he could get any more freaked out.

“I’ll start from out here, mkay?” Hinata continues, fingers glancing across the bulge in Kageyama’s underwear.

The bulge twitches. If that’s going to keep happening the more Hinata keeps talking, Kageyama is going to pop a blood vessel or two hundred.

Hinata grins. “Gotcha, I gotcha.”

Does he? How can he sound so confident, so knowing, so sure?

Um what the fuck that’s Hinata’s mouth on him.

Kageyama goes rigid. It’s such an obvious feeling. Kageyama has never felt this before and yet, feeling it now, there’s no way it could have felt any different. Hinata’s mouth is warm on him. His tongue adds stiff, focused, damp pressure, but his lips are supple, a sweet little circle of contact.

Kageyama confirms very quickly that Hinata hasn’t done this before. He hasn’t got anything to compare it to but there’s no finesse, no control. Hinata slides his mouth one way for a bit, then slides it the other way, left-to-right and not quite along the length of Kageyama’s cock. It still feels good though. The shock of this realisation hinges Kageyama's mouth open on a gasp that wants so badly to come out, that he won’t allow to.

A few more moments of this warm, imprecise pressure. Sometime in the middle of it, Kageyama realises it’s a race to see who can soak his boxers the quickest; Hinata from the outside or Kageyama from the inside. Fucking typical of them. Kageyama rolls his head around on his neck and tries not to let that turn him on more.

Hinata mumbles something with his mouth full of cotton. The vibrations are yummy even through the fabric.

“Don’t… ugh. Don’t try to talk, I can’t hear you,” Kageyama says through the clench of his teeth.

With a hum of realisation that resonates in Kageyama’s entire body, Hinata pulls away, lips wet and strawberry red.

“Is it okay?” he asks. Why does he sound like he’s asking for feedback on his receive?

Kageyama nods once. “It’s okay.”

Hinata pouts. “Wah, just okay? Not really really good?”

“You didn’t ask if it was really really good, moron,” Kageyama pants. He’s panting. Of course it’s good.

“Hm,” Hinata huffs. “Can I try without the boxers?”

Can he get his mouth on Kageyama’s naked dick, is what he means.

Again, Kageyama must nod or make a noise of confirmation, he’s not sure which one happens. Hinata tucks his fingers into the waistband of Kageyama’s boxers and tugs them down. Kageyama’s dick gets dragged down with them until it flies free and the head smacks against his stomach. He winces, not because it hurts, but because it leaves the skin just above his navel wet.

Hinata gulps. Kageyama hears it.

“Nice.”

“Jesus.”

“Can I…?” Hinata doesn’t finish but he inches his mouth forward. Has he forgotten he has hands, too?

When Kageyama doesn’t stop him, Hinata touches his lips to the base of Kageyama’s cock. Kisses it. Kisses up it when Kageyama still doesn’t stop him. Soft little presses of his mouth along the flushed length, one after the other. Considering how much Kageyama’s cock twitches, it’s probably a far more difficult task than it should be. Again, Kageyama wonders if Hinata has forgotten he has hands.

It takes a while to regain control of his motor functions. When he does, he lends a literal hand, taking it off Hinata’s shoulder and gripping himself at the base, steadying. Hinata blinks up at him.

“Sorry. It keeps moving,” Kageyama mumbles.

Hinata grins. “That’s fine. Move your hand for a sec, though, I wanna get to the bottom, too.”

Kageyama swallows his tongue and complies, tilting his cock up with just a thumb at the base so Hinata can drag his tongue all the way up him, holy shit.

“Fuck,” Kageyama whispers.

“Okay?” Hinata asks again, planting much wetter kisses all over him.

Kageyama nods. Says, “It feels good.”

The ecstatic smile on Hinata’s face is entirely inappropriate for the way his tongue lolls out to lick again, one long, flat stripe following the same path. He does it again and again, starts twirling his tongue too to wetten Kageyama all around. To Kageyama’s utter horror, his hips start bucking up, small, cautionary movements but movements nonetheless. His cock slides along Hinata’s tongue so Hinata doesn’t even have to move his head. Just sits there with his hands in his lap and his mouth open and his tongue out, letting Kageyama hump him.

He lets that happen for a while longer, lets Kageyama get huffy and red-faced with it, until he plants his hands back on Kageyama’s thighs to still him.

“This is fun,” Hinata says, grinning and happy and wet around his mouth. “You having fun too?”

Kageyama chews on his lower lip. “Yeah.”

“Keep it still for me?” Hinata asks, wrapping his fingers around Kageyama’s to re-secure his grip.

“That’s what I was doing—fuck.”

Hot. It’s so hot in here, in Hinata’s mouth. Wet, too, almost gluey. His tongue twitches like it doesn't know what to do with something this heavy on it. Kageyama’s frenulum rests just on the tip of the flickering muscle, the stimulation a constant, burning thing. Hinata’s lips are pillows around the girth of him. Wet, tight pillows. Soft and sucking. Kageyama, for some reason, thinks of marshmallows.

Again, though, it's the view. Sure, the way this feels, this warm, wet suction like Kageyama has just stuck his dick in the cloud that heaven sits on, is just that: heavenly. But that only deposits the pleasure in Kageyama’s stomach. The thing that sets it bubbling is the way Hinata looks. Pink pink pink cheeks, red mouth, even redder hair. Honey gold eyes. They look up at Kageyama, widened slightly in what might be shock. Hinata sits there and drools with his mouth clamped around Kageyama’s cock, sucking once, twice, before pulling off with a sound that makes Kageyama’s entire aura twitch.

“Hm,” Hinata says, licking over the pout on his lips. “That was hard.”

Yes, fuck, it is. Fuck.

“It’s a little tricky keeping my teeth out of the way,” Hinata continues.

“You… you didn’t look like you were struggling,” Kageyama hisses. No, he’d looked like someone that was going to make Kageyama come entirely too soon.

Hinata glances up at him, kinda shit-eatingly. “Did you like it, Yamayama?”

“Can’t tell, why don’t you shut up and do it again. Smug asshole,” Kageyama murmurs, trying to save face. Trying to belittle the effect Hinata has on him. There’s only so much dignity he can afford to lose.

“So bossy,” Hinata rolls his eyes. His hand replaces Kageyama’s and Kageyama makes an embarrassing noise. “I’m gonna just, like, lick it some more for a bit? I don’t wanna bite you.”

Kageyama doesn’t know what to say to that. At least that’s one familiar thing to come from this; not knowing which words will say what he feels.

Hinata does one better than ‘lick it some more’. He starts to pump Kageyama’s slick cock with his hand, tongue smoothing the path whenever he deems it too dry. Kageyama wriggles, thighs clenching and unclenching. Hinata tilts him this way and that, enthusiastic, eager to get him fucking soaked, apparently, not to miss an inch.

Kageyama has held on long enough.

Wiping his one sticky hand on his thigh, he then brings both hands to Hinata’s hair. Finally. The comfort is immediate, settling in right next to the pleasure and rendering it mellow. Kageyama sighs.

“Mm. Hinata.”

Hinata can make fun of Kageyama for the grunty quality of his moan later, so long as he knows that Kageyama will also make fun of the way Hinata’s eyes flutter in response to it.

“You sound good,” Hinata says, kissing around Kageyama’s dripping cockhead, lips glossed with precome. “Really, really good.”

“Mmph,” Kageyama grunts, hopelessly aroused. “You’re doing well.”

Hinata’s blush is worth the embarrassment of the compliment, worth the way it scorches Kageyama’s face.

“That’s good,” Hinata mumbles, hand steady and perfectly tight-loose around Kageyama. “Want to do well. Make you feel nice.”

Kageyama can’t let Hinata win the ‘who-can-ruin-the-other-more’ competition, so he scratches lightly through Hinata’s hair, concentrating on the floaty baby hairs at the nape of his neck. Hinata makes the prettiest noise, a moan that shudders between a groan and a whine.

“Ah… there, ‘Yama, there,” he whispers into Kageyama’s cock when Kageyama’s questing fingers stroke just the soft side of rough at the very base of Hinata’s skull, that space where thick hair meets thinner wisps.

“What, you sensitive or something?” Kageyama asks, pressing his fingers harder into the spot, massaging, nails grazing.

“Don’t make fun of me.” Hinata bites into the fabric still covering Kageyama’s inner thigh. Kageyama wants to tell him to do it hard enough to leave a mark even through the cotton.

It appears Hinata really is sensitive here; the more Kageyama rubs and soothes, the slower Hinata’s hand moves. God, and Kageyama had been tugging all up on this hair for the better part of them knowing each other. How much had he really hurt him? How many hairs aren’t going to grow back now that Kageyama has ripped them out into his own palms? How much does Hinata trust him, to offer this piece of himself and be so sure that Kageyama won’t abuse it?

As guilty as the thoughts make him feel, it’s not enough to override the urge to chase an orgasm, to let the pleasure reach its natural peak. He can feel it wanting to, even though the comfort is still there, calming him down. Hinata is just sighing into Kageyama’s thigh now, nuzzling into it when he isn’t pushing his head against Kageyama’s palms. His hand is still around Kageyama, unmoving. Kageyama wishes he had the patience to let that continue. Or, rather, to let it not continue.

He tilts his hips up, gently fucking his cock the rest of the way through Hinata’s loose fist. Stomach muscles pulling taut, he brings his hips back down, then pushes them up again. Down, up, down, up, down. In, out, in, out of Hinata’s sloppy palm.

“Oh,” Hinata says after a moment, blinking a very fucked-out haze from his honey eyes. “Sorry. You distracted me.”

“Learn to multitask, loser,” Kageyama breathes, head lolling back as his hips roll of their own accord now that they’ve found a rhythm.

“Hm. I’ll show you multitasking…”

And there it is again. Wet, silky, almost-hot warmth. But now it’s gone a lot further down Kageyama’s cock than before. Now Hinata has half of him shoved in his mouth. And it would seem neither of them had been prepared for him to do that.

“Shit!” Kageyama almost yells. And, fuck, oh fuck, his hands tighten into fists in Hinata’s hair.

Hinata wails around Kageyama, but rather than pull off, the movement of his throat pushes him further down. Impales him deeper on Kageyama, until mmph, fuck, this is the very end of his tongue. His throat’s right there, fuck, just a little more, please…

“Fuck,” Kageyama kicks some sense into himself. Not enough sense, apparently, because to get Hinata off him, he pulls. Hard.

“Ow,” Hinata whimpers once his mouth is free. “Shit, dammit, ow.”

“Shit, shit, I’m sorry,” Kageyama quails, pulling his hands away. “Sorry, I’m sorry Hinata, I— dammit, why’d you try to take that much that quickly!”

“How am I getting blamed for this?” Hinata moans, massaging his hands right where Kageyama had pulled.

If Kageyama weren’t so turned on physically, the guilt would destroy him. Here’s what he had just feared would happen, Hinata’s trust breaking like the strands Kageyama just… yeah, when he looks down, there are some more in his palm. Fuck.

“Hinata,” he mumbles, voice shot with guilt. “Come here?”

Hinata shuffles forward immediately, like Kageyama didn’t just make some of his follicles probably bleed. His eyes are wet, either from the pulled hair or the almost choking to death, or both. Kageyama cups Hinata’s face, leans down to kiss all over it. Forehead to nose to cheekbones to corners of mouth to mouth itself, until Hinata is sighing into an exasperated giggle.

“Well, someone’s feeling affectionate.”

“Shut up, idiot,” Kageyama huffs, lips slow and apologetic against Hinata’s. “Just. I didn’t mean to pull that hard. I know it hurts a lot. Sorry.”

That does something to Hinata’s face. Twists it up kinda weirdly, eyebrows pulled down, mouth pulled up, tiny button nose caught in the middle. How awful a person is Kageyama, really? Is kindness really so unfamiliar coming from him? Is it too late for him to start trying?

His crisis is still ongoing when Hinata speaks. The last thing Kageyama expects to hear in Hinata’s response is mischief, but that’s what he gets. Mischief in his voice, and in his lips, where they peek up into a smile at the corners Kageyama just kissed, the corners that had just screwed up in something uncomfortably close to alarm.

“That’s okay,” he whispers into Kageyama’s mouth. “I’ll get you back.”

Whiplash. Kageyama has never really had his emotions whipped back and forth hard enough for it to feel like his head has snapped clean off his neck, but he’s fairly certain that’s what’s happening.

…Does he like having his hair pulled? Does he hate it? Kageyama doesn’t know, but if Hinata chooses now to help him find out, he very well may come all over himself. The visual alone is enough to clue him in that he might actually like it, and his cock throbs.

Hinata laughs. “Okay, okay, I get it. Sit back, Kageyama, let me finish.”

Let you finish? Kageyama almost says it, but then Hinata is back with a hand around his base and a mouth around his tip and, well, there goes that plan.

Carefully, as carefully as he has done anything in his life, Kageyama curls his fingers back into Hinata’s tousled hair. He doesn’t even use his nails this time, just the pads of his fingers and his palms. He wants as much cushioning as possible, as much of a buffer zone between Hinata and pain as he can create. Admittedly, though, it is damn near impossible to concentrate when Hinata sinks up and down him like this, tight mouth suckling softly on him.

“God, Hinata,” Kageyama moans. So far gone he isn’t even ashamed to admit that that’s what it is: a moan. “Yes, like that.”

Hinata fucking whines at that, lets the sound resonate so close over Kageyama because his lips stay latched so tight on his dick. Kageyama’s hips, still operating on that mind of their own, roll up again, fucking Hinata’s mouth so gently they’re barely moving. Hinata can tell, though, as he keeps his head still to accommodate. Kageyama can tell, too. The slide is exquisite.

It’s at moments like this that Kageyama’s stupid dumb brain chooses to remind him of something stupid and dumb. Like the fact that Hinata’s sister and mother are in the same damn house. Like the fact that they will definitely hear them if they get any louder than this.

It is also at moments like this that Hinata’s equally stupid dumb brain makes him do something to help Kageyama forget everything he could have ever worried about. Like unbuckle his belt, unbutton his pants, stick his hand down the open space, and start pumping himself in time with the steady rock of Kageyama’s hips.

“Fucking hell.”

Moaning around Kageyama, Hinata touches himself with an eagerness that makes Kageyama feel every drop of sweat all over his own body. He wishes he had the spare headspace to ask Hinata to pull his cock all the way out. He wants to see it. Wants to see what makes Hinata tick. Does he squeeze around the head like Kageyama does to himself? Is his hand in the same loose-tight fist that he’s stroking Kageyama with? Does his foreskin pull all the way up and all the way down over his tip when he jerks it? Or does the head only peek out so far? How much does he leak?

“Fuck. Ugh, fuck,” Kageyama grunts, petting through Hinata’s hair, succumbing to Hinata’s hand, to his mouth.

Hinata nudges his tongue up against the flare at the base of Kageyama’s cockhead, the smooth, soppy lip of it. That earlier pleasure curls wicked all up in Kageyama, makes a fucking mess of his insides. Everytime Hinata’s tongue pushes against that needy, achy spot, the top of Kageyama’s spongy tip presses into the roof of Hinata’s mouth. Sometimes there’s the gravel of teeth, which feels so scary and potentially amazing and potentially cataclysmic that Kageyama goes all tense, muscles in his stomach and thighs pulling taut so he doesn’t nudge too far up into Hinata’s teeth.

Kageyama gets tense like this to help himself come, when he’s on his own. Helps him get there, when his entire body draws up tight and focuses on that edge he wants over. The reminder is an awful, perfect detriment to the self-control he’s trying to assert. The revelation that he’s getting close makes more precome seep from him. Every wet flick of Hinata’s tongue on that tight stack of nerves, and every consequent nudge of the top of Kageyama’s head against the rough-wet heat of Hinata’s soft palate, gets Kageyama’s cock drooling. He swears he can feel the little pool of pre, different texture to Hinata’s saliva, collecting in the dip of Hinata’s cupped, flicking tongue. Kageyama hopes Hinata likes it, because he’s going to have to swallow so much of it.

Unless he doesn’t want to, which is a decision he needs to make very, very soon, oh, fuck…

“Hinata,” Kageyama hisses. “Close. Close, I’m fucking close. Pull off, stupid.”

Hinata shakes his head, then pulls off, which seems contradictory. He’s still tugging himself off, arm becoming a blur with it. His mouth is swollen and sticky with not just spit. Spit and pre glisten differently. Both look so pretty on Hinata’s lips, though, pretty enough that Kageyama can’t help himself, kissing the mess off Hinata’s mouth and adding some to his own. Hinata moans into it, sweet, cut-off things. A few more of those and Kageyama is going to come hard enough to feel it next week.

That, and Hinata’s hand, still pumping him. Clearly, the multitasking isn’t a problem anymore.

“Jesus,” Kageyama pants, chest heaving, head dizzy. “God, gonna come.”

“Kageyama,” Hinata whines, speaking right into the space between Kageyama’s lips. “Can you come in my mouth?”

“Hinata.”

“Please, you’ve tasted so good this whole time,” Hinata pleads, stroking them both faster. “Wanna taste your come, too. Please, I’m so close, it’s gonna help me come, please.”

“Fucking… fuck, get over here, then,” Kageyama spits, disbelief warring with flaming arousal, and Hinata wraps his lips back around him just in time for Kageyama to come fucking buckets.

It’s a good thing Hinata’s hand is holding him, because Kageyama can feel his cock bucking in Hinata’s mouth like it wants to twitch right off his pelvis. The pleasure is beyond addictive. Kageyama likes coming as much as the next guy but this is about to be a problem. He has never had an orgasm like this and now he wants all of them to be like this.

And Hinata is swallowing around him, and moaning around him, and Kageyama is spurting all thick and hot down Hinata’s gulping throat, and then Hinata goes silent and still and Kageyama watches his eyes fly open, gazing deep and helpless and horny at Kageyama as he comes, too. God, Kageyama is seriously regretting not making Hinata pull his pants all the way down. He wants to see Hinata’s cock come. He wonders if it’s as pretty as Hinata is.

Endorphins replace brain cells, dopamine replaces blood, as they come down. Hinata slips off Kageyama with another soul-shaking wet noise, and rests his head back on Kageyama’s thigh. Kageyama cards his fingers through Hinata’s hair.

“You get it all?” he asks, panting.

He’s just trying to poke fun, but Hinata sticks his tongue out to show Kageyama anyway. There are faint traces of white on it. Kageyama very nearly passes out.

“Fuck, Hinata.”

“Mm,” Hinata sighs. “Okay, it doesn’t really taste that good.”

“Moron, of course it doesn’t. It’s come.”

“Whatever. You liked hearing me say it.”

Kageyama pouts and frowns. Hinata looks up at him like he hung the moon, and several stars. And painted a supernova or two.
And whenever Kageyama gets over himself, whenever he pretends to stop looking so goddamn grumpy, he’s certain he’ll look down at Hinata the same way.

*

He’s got the hang of it now, he thinks. This being-gentle thing.

It's taken a few months, of course. Re-evaluating his entire self was always bound to. But Hinata says he’s doing well, getting better. It was sometime after the first time he called Kageyama his boyfriend and Kageyama had had a brain haemorrhage about it. Actually it had been during that first time.

You’re pretty good at being nice to me. You’re a really good boyfriend, Kageyama-kun.

Kageyama hadn’t known that that’s what he was. A boyfriend. He’d hoped, but he would be damned if he was going to be the person to ask about it. And for Hinata to confirm that that’s what he’d been this entire time, ever since that first kiss after their loss against Itachiyama Institute? It had played into a dynamic he has become very used to with Hinata; being comforted even though he hadn’t asked for it.

He wants to give back. That’s what the being-gentle is supposed to achieve. And though it has taken some time, Kageyama has liked every second of it.

Especially this second. This second with Hinata underneath him, legs cocked open around Kageyama’s head, thin sheen of sweat the only thing he’s wearing, sighing with those pretty lips and clenching with this pretty hole around Kageyama’s finger.
Kageyama had wanted to lick him there. Wanted to fit his tongue in that tight furl and see if it tasted as pink as it looked. He’d asked Hinata if he could, though not in as many words (“Can I eat you out?” “Oh, shit.”) Hinata hadn’t let him because he hadn’t wanted to come too quickly. Stuck between his legs right now, stuffed up close to Hinata with a finger stroking his insides, Kageyama thinks Hinata’s caution had been stupid. Kageyama’s tongue is nowhere near Hinata’s asshole and Hinata looks like he’s about to come any second.

He supposes he’s not too upset about it, though. Hinata sounds sweet. Looks even sweeter. There’s lube shining between his cheeks, sloppy around his hole and Kageyama’s finger inside it. He takes Kageyama very well. At least, Kageyama thinks he does. He’s never done this before. But Hinata isn’t in any pain, though the pleasure is so concentrated on his face that it kinda looks like he is. Hinata's hands are tight around his own thighs, keeping them up and spread for Kageyama. Kageyama knows how flexible Hinata can be, knows he doesn’t need the extra help. But his thighs had kept twitching closed when Kageyama had sucked him off earlier, so Kageyama had told him to hold them.

There’s something about the fact that Hinata is still doing that, still listening to the instruction even though his fingers are slipping with sweat all over his plump, soft, reddened skin, that Kageyama really likes. He really, really likes it when Hinata listens to him. Kageyama is always conscious of Suga’s correction, about people hearing him rather than listening to him, but the last thing he wants to remember right now, with his finger nudging Hinata’s prostate, is his senpai.

To distract himself, to recenter himself, Kageyama drops kisses over the undersides of Hinata’s spread thighs, exposed for him, begging him to bite. He drags his tongue over them, sucking the skin pulled taut right above Hinata’s fingers, loving how those fingers grip even tighter when he does. He slides his own finger in and out, fucks Hinata slowly with it. Gently.

“Mmph,” Hinata whines. Kageyama looks up to red bedroom hair and gold bedroom eyes. “Wow, Kageyama. How come you’re so good at this?”

Kageyama shrugs. “I’m just doing what you said. You told me to go slow.”

“You—mmm, yes… You might even be better than me.”

Kageyama snorts into the bruise he just made. “Obviously.”

Hinata bristles, starts to writhe in protest, so Kageyama shoves his finger harder into Hinata’s prostate. Rather than shut him up, like Kageyama had hoped it would, it makes him louder. A delicious, rumbly moan works its way out of Hinata’s lips, melts the indignation on his face into pure bliss. Kageyama blinks. This is way better than shutting Hinata up. In fact, it’s so much better, Kageyama does it again. He works his finger in relentless pulses against the little bump of nerves that gets Hinata’s cock dripping and his hole relaxing.

“I’m gonna come if you keep doing that.” Is that supposed to be a threat?

“Why don’t you want to?” Kageyama asks, dragging his lips away from Hinata’s thighs. He’s reluctant about it. Only convinces himself to do so because Hinata’s cock is thick and flushed and wet on his stomach, and Hinata hadn’t said anything against Kageyama tasting him here. He grasps Hinata by the base, lifts his cock up, and licks over the slit, as persistent with this as he is with Hinata’s prostate.

“Oh, my god,” Hinata wails, grip on his own thighs faltering for a second. He whines when Kageyama glares at him, but keeps his thighs apart without further coaxing. “Shit, that feels so, so good…!”

Kageyama waits for Hinata to answer his question. In fairness, he’s distracting Hinata from it quite a bit, licking up his cock and teasing a second finger at Hinata’s asshole. But Hinata is nothing if not determined, so he gets there eventually (though not after a few more moans and profanities).

“I wanna—w-wanna… fuck, ‘Yama,” he stutters. “I wanna come when you’re fucking me. And I don’t know if I could do it more than once.”

Kageyama would tell him that, technically, he is fucking Hinata, with two fingers now instead of just the one. But he’s busy short-circuiting. His mouth is parted and he’s just drooling dumbly all over Hinata’s cock and balls, probably looking like a damn idiot but powerless to do anything else.

“Oh,” he says after a while, managing to close his mouth. “Okay. Yeah, you can do that.”

Hinata huffs an exasperated, wrung-out laugh. “Well yeah, I know I can. But I won’t be able to if you keep… if you keep… mmmph, god.”

“I’ve got to keep stretching you out,” Kageyama breathes. “You won’t be able to take me if you’ve only had two fingers inside you.” He frowns, considering. Calculating. “Might not even manage it with three.”

Something about what he said gets Hinata leaking even more precome, abs tightening like he’s squeezing it out with every fibre of his body. Kageyama licks it up as it seeps from his cockhead, curling his fingers inside Hinata to try and get even more out because he finds he actually quite likes the taste. Hinata moans like the mad thing he is, head twisting back and forth on the pillow, toes curling in the air on either side of Kageyama’s head.

“You don’t even know how sexy you are, do you?” Hinata pants.

Kageyama hadn’t been trying to be sexy. He was just being practical.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he mumbles. “Can you take one more?”

Hinata picks his head up from the bed. It takes a couple seconds for his vision to focus and Kageyama’s gut clenches. Hinata’s the sexy one, all flushed skin and crazy hair and perfect, perfect body. Kageyama is achingly hard between his own legs just watching him, cock throbbing in jealousy over his fingers. He feels so big, so thick, he can’t imagine he’ll be able to fit inside Hinata’s hole. And here he is asking if he can fit in another finger. Where’s his shame?

But Hinata would never let him back down. Never has, never will. So, it’s really not a surprise, his response.

“I can take whatever you wanna give me, Kageyama-kun.”

Kageyama obliges him, because of course he does, squeezing more lube onto Hinata’s stuffed hole before slipping a third finger in. He fears he’s proving himself right about nothing fitting. There’s a terrifying moment when he butts against some resistance, and Hinata hisses with pain, and Kageyama’s heart starts to crack all over. Then Hinata takes a deep breath in, a deeper one out, and Kageyama’s fingers, all fucking three of them, sink with ease, slippery and thick in him.

“Are you okay?” Kageyama asks as his heart heals.

Hinata nods. “Just, slow, please.”

Well, yeah. Kageyama wasn’t about to speed up. Doesn’t even think he could, what with Hinata this tight around him. Kageyama’s second knuckles tingle when Hinata’s hole flexes around them. It’s a fucking sight. All that soft, wet pink trying to swallow him up. Kageyama has to take his hand off Hinata’s cock and clutch his own, squeezing tight just above his balls to stopper himself up. Cut his come off before it can come out.

When he looks back up, Hinata is staring him down. It almost makes his vice-like grip obsolete.

“Are you gonna put that inside me, Kageyama?” he asks. Goading, coy, more arch than the curve of his spine when Kageyama rubs inside him right.

Kageyama swallows, fingers inside Hinata stilling. He squeezes himself tighter, and still precome floods to the tip of his dick, spilling over onto his tense fist. Hinata’s eyes blaze.

“You’re gonna come soon too, huh?” Hinata prods, biting his lip like he wants it. “You gonna come before you can even fuck me?”

Probably. At this point, most likely. But Kageyama knows what Hinata is doing. Sure, the situation is a little new, but Kageyama will recognise Hinata trying to one-up him anywhere. It's as natural as breathing, really. To retaliate, that is.

Deciding that the premature ejaculation is worth the risk, Kageyama lets go of his own dick to wrap his hand back around Hinata’s. He strokes slowly, almost too slow to feel properly good, were it not for how wet Hinata is in his palm. When Hinata’s mouth drops open, eyelids drooping halfway down, Kageyama starts thrusting his fingers again. Three of them, pressing in to the last knuckle then pulling out to the very tips.

“Oh,” Hinata gasps. Like he thought Kageyama would ever pass up the opportunity to battle him. Pity, then, that Kageyama isn’t quite done doing it.

“Not gonna get to fuck you at all if you don’t loosen up,” he mutters, punching his fingers in hard. Right on top of Hinata’s prostate. “What are you so tight for, dumbass?”

“Kageyama…”

“Guess I really am better at fingering you than you are,” he says, hushed. “Like I am at most things.”

“Shut up, stupid,” Hinata moans.

“Shouldn’t you be used to this by now, anyway?” Kageyama continues, twisting both his wrists. “You always tell me how much you love fingering yourself, trying to embarrass me. But you’re tight like you’ve never done it before.”

Writhing, Hinata complains, “Not fair. Your fingers are bigger than mine.”

“My dick’s bigger than my fingers. If you can’t take these, you’re not gonna take anything.”

Kageyama doesn’t always win, though. Sometimes, he wonders if Hinata lets him think that he is winning for just that second longer. Just to make it all the more devastating when he loses. So, Kageyama is tripping balls off the high of Hinata’s flushed face, his parted lips, his dripping cock and his clenching hole. And that’s when Hinata grins at him, all teeth.

“I can take it. You know I can take it. So stop being such a wimp and give it to me.”

If anyone asks, Kageyama will say that Hinata told him to. He washes himself of responsibility from here. If Hinata wants to bite off more than he can chew, Kageyama won’t stop him. Especially not if Kageyama is the one getting consumed.

That’s what he tells himself to try and quash the guilt, the fear. All through slipping his fingers out, putting on the condom, lubing himself up, Kageyama tries not to think about his capacity to hurt. Hinata isn’t made of glass. He can take a little pain. Can take a lot of pain. But it’s not just pain, is it? It’s pain that Kageyama gives him. He’s getting so good at being careful with Hinata. Going back on that progress, doing what is necessary to go back on that progress, will be Kageyama’s unbecoming.

But he’s really horny and really hard and he doesn’t want his boner to flag, so he tries to tell himself that if Hinata gets hurt, it’s Hinata’s fault. And still, when he presses inside, he does it slower than he’s ever done anything in his life.

This would be tedious if it didn’t feel so good. Hinata is nothing less than suffocating around Kageyama’s cock, so tight Kageyama can’t move for a second anyway. So overwhelming, pleasure so constricting it might actually feel too good. Kageyama isn’t the best with normal levels of stimuli, physical or otherwise. He’s out of his depth here. So out of his depth, and so fucking deep…

And then his hands are in Hinata’s hair. He doesn’t remember putting them there, but he knows as soon as they’re in, because he feels that comfort again. It has become more and more familiar over the months but it’s still a surprise, how immediate it is, how inexorable. Good thing it’s here, too, because Kageyama is worried Hinata had been right, and he’s about to come even though he only just bottomed out.

Kageyama cards his fingers through Hinata’s hair, lifting his head off the pillow to do it, tucking Hinata as close to him as he can. Hinata’s hands smooth up his back. Or, they shaky up his back. He’s trembling everywhere, movements stilted and jerky. But when Kageyama opens eyes that he hadn’t known he’d closed, Hinata isn’t crying. Eyes bright but no tears in sight. No tears that Kageyama had put there.

“It’s okay,” Hinata whispers. “You’re doing really well.”

For some reason that Kageyama can’t quite clock onto, that feels backwards. Feels reversed, to have Hinata encourage him right now. Maybe it’s something to do with the fact that Hinata is taking a cock up the ass for the first time, and all Kageyama has to do is be the one sticking it in. What’s there to comfort, to encourage, about that?

Kageyama needs it, regardless, though. And he’d say thank you for it, except his tongue is stuck to the roof of his mouth. So he moves his hips instead. Hopefully, the gratitude won’t get lost in translation.

He doesn’t think it does. Hinata starts moaning Kageyama’s name which seems like a good thing. Actually, it seems like the best thing that has ever happened, on par with the pleasure destroying Kageyama’s entire sense of self. It’s all “Ah, Kageyama!” this, and “P-please, ‘Yama, please,” that. Might even be annoying. Kageyama is too turned on to classify it that way, though. Until he comes, it will be the least annoying thing he has ever heard.

Hinata is surprisingly easy to fuck, Kageyama discovers. He doesn’t squirm as much as Kageyama had thought he might. He’s pliant with it, letting Kageyama squeeze his cock inside with increasing ease on every thrust. His only movement is to slide his hands up Kageyama’s back and roll his head side to side. That part does get a little annoying, because Kageyama wants to keep his head tucked into Hinata’s neck (to suck hickeys there, of course. Not to hide his face), and with the way Hinata keeps whipping his head around, Kageyama can’t manage it.

When it happens, it’s an accident. Kageyama only wanted to keep him still. The tighter grip in Hinata’s hair had seemed like the only way to accomplish that. When Hinata gasps, and when Kageyama hears the sharper edge to it that betrays pain rather than pleasure, Kageyama goes stock still.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, aghast. “Fuck, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“Shh,” Hinata says into his hair. “It’s fine like that. It’s not too hard.”

Oh. It’s fine, Hinata says. Hinata says it’s okay. Kageyama puts his heart attack on hold. Chokes his tears before they can choke him. Starts fucking Hinata again.

And it really is fine. Holding Hinata still like this, Kageyama can (hide his face) suck hickeys into Hinata’s skin all he wants. He’s making a whole bunch of grunty noises, little huffs and puffs through his mouth when he brings it away from Hinata’s neck. His face is flushed to high heaven and the pleasure feels like something he’d only find in the second circle of hell. Hinata is sweet and perfect beneath him, around him. He’s loud, too, won’t shut the fuck up, but that’s par for the course. Kageyama has been learning recently that he wouldn’t have it any other way, and the sounds Hinata is making are cementing that all the more.

It’s nice until it’s not. Until it’s more than nice. Kageyama can hear his blood roaring in his ears, underlying Hinata whining his name and swearing. Hinata is giving Kageyama a run for his money on that front. He hadn’t figured Hinata would have such a dirty mouth when he gets a cock in him. The realisation flays Kageyama alive.

Even though Kageyama’s fingers are still in Hinata’s hair, that earlier comfort is long gone. Bliss scorches it clean through, leaving an ache in its place that shakes Kageyama to his very core. Gets his cock leaking something fierce, something kind of alarming if he could stop fucking Hinata long enough to worry about it. He can feel his balls hitting wetly against Hinata’s ass with every push in. Can feel Hinata’s hole sucking on him on every pull out. It’s maddening. It’s madness.

“I’m gonna fucking come,” Kageyama finds himself spitting at one point. How like him, to sound so mad about it.

“Me too,” Hinata pants. “You feel so good. I don’t wanna stop.”

Kageyama scoffs. Whines. “I’m not g-going to stop.”

Hinata moans. “Not even when… oh, oh, oh… n-not even when you come, ‘Yama?”

“F-fuck, no. I’ll go as long as you want.” He leans up from Hinata’s bruised neck, looks down at him. Grins. “Bet I can go longer.”

Hinata’s answering grin makes drool leak out of the corner of his mouth. “Bet I can.”

Kageyama kisses up the line of spit until he reaches Hinata’s lips, and then he kisses those, too. “I’m not losing to you.”

“Neither am I.” Hinata smirks into the kiss.

Kageyama isn’t so sure about his own resolve, at this point, but he figures the least he can do is fuck Hinata so hard, it weakens his resolve, too. He digs his knees into the bed and pistons his hips, cramming his cock so deep inside Hinata he worries he’s gonna poke up and out of Hinata’s stomach. Somehow, he manages to loosen his grip on Hinata’s hair as he does it, smoothing through the strands, because it looks like Hinata might need that comfort, now. He’s whining like a thing possessed, voice cracking on every moan. Kageyama has never been more grateful for being home alone in his life.

He plants kisses onto Hinata’s parted lips to try and quiet the noise anyway, but it’s a lost cause. When Hinata wants to let people know what he’s feeling, nobody will stop him. Kageyama can barely believe that Hinata is feeling this good, and it’s Kageyama’s fault. Kageyama’s doing. Can’t believe that Hinata is giving him that same goodness back, matching him moan for moan.

His orgasm is so good it’s painful. As much as Kageyama wants to fuck deep inside Hinata and stay there, fill him up like the animal that Hinata files him down to, he’d made a promise. And he really doesn’t like to lose.

He keeps pumping his hips as he fills the condom, spilling so hard he thinks he might be blacking out, and even through the haze he can feel every second of Hinata coming right after him, squeezing around him, milking him for every drop.

Hinata isn’t the only one who tends to bite off more than he can chew, take on more than he can stomach. In fact, they tend to go that route together. Very quickly, it becomes abundantly clear that continuing isn’t feasible, not after the most intense orgasms of their lives. Gradually, Kageyama slows his pace, cock softening until it slips out and can’t go back in. Hinata lets out another pained whimper and Kageyama is quick to kiss him an apology, fingers weak and willowy on Hinata’s cheek.

After a while, Hinata starts to doze off, which is kind of typical and irritating. Kageyama grumbles to himself as he tugs off the condom, ties it up, chucks it in the wastepaper basket next to his bed. The grumbling tapers off when he cleans himself up with a couple tissues, when he drags a washcloth over Hinata’s come-soaked stomach, his soft, drippy cock, his lube-wet asshole. Hinata hums his appreciation but doesn’t open his eyes.

“Oi. Dumbass,” Kageyama says when he’s done, laying next to Hinata and poking his shoulder probably too hard.

Hinata grunts and keeps his eyes closed.

“Moron, look at me.” Another poke.

Hinata bats his hand away.

Kageyama sighs. “Hinata. Look at me.”

Hinata’s lips twitch into a wobbly, tired smile. He opens his eyes (they look bigger than they had when Kageyama had brought him up here. Brighter, too. Is that a side effect of losing virginity? Maybe Kageyama hadn’t done enough research).

“Oh, I’m sorry, Kageyama, did you want something?”

Kageyama rolls his eyes, clicks his tongue. “You’re annoying as hell.”

Hinata laughs, throwing his arms around Kageyama in a quite frankly unnecessarily tight hug. Unnecessary, but very cute. Kageyama seals his mouth tight shut so he doesn’t say so.

“Ah, I feel so good, ‘Yama!” Hinata is exclaiming. Very loudly. Right into Kageyama’s ear. “Sex feels so good, doesn’t it? My ass hurts, though.”

“Ugh, can you shut up for one goddamn second? That’s what I was going to ask you about—Oi, moron, stop moving.”

Kageyama has to pin Hinata to the bed to still him. Hinata’s eyes go even wider, and kinda hungry, and Kageyama swears he feels something twitch under his stomach. He doesn’t look down because he’s trying to be serious.

“Did I hurt you?” he asks, hands tight on Hinata’s upper arms. “You need to tell me if I did. If I did anything wrong.”

Hinata softens. The hot look in his eyes turns warm and cosy and golden.

“You were perfect,” is what he says.

Kageyama’s breath hitches.

“Shut up,” he says after entirely too long.

“I’m serious,” Hinata grins. “And no, you didn’t hurt me.”

“Not even when I… um.” Kageyama falters. “Not even when I pulled your hair?”

“Not even then,” Hinata reassures him, craning his neck up to kiss Kageyama’s nose. “It’s fine, I promise. I know you’d never mean to hurt me.”

And that’s been the whole point from the start, really. Kageyama would never hurt Hinata intentionally. He has done it unintentionally enough times and that alone feels like killing something even after it’s dead. Beating something when it’s already down. Usually, if someone asked him who the worst person in the world is, Kageyama would say some sort of dictator or serial killer or something. When he hurts Hinata, that person irrevocably becomes himself.

It’s a learning curve, though. Caring for other people. Caring for Hinata more than caring for other people. Kageyama will get even better, like with everything he sets his mind to. He tilts his head and fits his lips against Hinata’s, hopes that the kiss will say what his mouth otherwise can’t.

Hinata slides his lips perfectly against Kageyama’s. Fits right in against the seam and the crevices and the corners. Kageyama mouths all over those lips because they’re his, now. His to not hurt, just like the rest of Hinata.

And when he pulls back, Hinata looks up at him like Kageyama is his, too. Which Kageyama is. Has been.

Then, he grins.

“Besides, I already told you.” Hinata smiles. “I’m going to get you back.”

*

The ‘getting back’ doesn’t end up working. Because while Hinata doesn’t like having his hair pulled too hard, it turns out that Kageyama loves it.

Notes:

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