Chapter Text
Okay, so the thing is, he didn’t want to be here in the first place. It was fucking Christmas Eve, for god’s sake, and here he was, surrounded by a bunch of volleyball nerds whacking large balls at each other when it was a perfectly good day to sit and vegetate in his room. …On a second thought, he could almost hear his brother whining from behind, begging him for a bro-date to the mall and Jesus Christ maybe volleyball was okay after all. He didn’t really have much time to decide anyway, not when Lev had risen up from the other side of the net like some corpse from the grave and smacked the volleyball right into his nose.
“Fuck,” Kei choked out as he basically collapsed onto the floor in a heap. There was something trickling down his nose and he was pretty sure it wasn’t mucus. Gingerly, he tugged his face upwards with pinched fingers to the bridge of his nose and shot Lev the best glare he could. “Didn’t your mother ever teach you that just because you can, doesn’t mean you should?”
“Whaaaaaaat? You were spacing out!” Lev whined. Kei watched with a distinct lack of amusement as the outrageously tall, Russian idiot started to pace backwards and forwards, shooting Kuroo pleading looks. He could tell that Lev was torn between feeling defensive and also incredibly guilty, but heck, he wasn’t going to help him solve that inner turmoil.
“He was spacing out and you were staring at some ass, Lev, so don’t think you’re off the hook!” Kuroo hollered from behind, and really, just when Kei’s day couldn’t get any better he had to be reminded of how the blundering moron in front of him had a crush on his girlfriend. Lev’s face was the colour of the setting goddamn sun and there was zero shame in his expression, instead preferring to stare blatantly at the girl laughing next to the scoreboard. At least he was trying to be discrete before he got called out, now he just didn’t give a fuck. Kei was about to not give a fuck either, and just smash that lard into next week.
Was he always this angry? Probably.
“Hey,” he waved a lazy hand at his darling, “aren’t girlfriends supposed to be loving and tender when their SO’s been hit in the face?”
She nodded quickly with an abashed expression and hurried over to his side, pressing a towel to his cheek. Kei wasn’t the type to go for PDA, even less so his socially anxious girlfriend, but sometimes he had to admit that these moments felt nice. It was quiet sort of intimacy, and he slowly glanced sideways, a small smile tilting his lips upwards as he watched her face fill with worry, and most of all, love. It didn’t matter how many people were watching them right now. It didn’t matter if he had lost his nose entirely for all he cared, it was enough to have her small fingers press against his own, helping him stem the flow of the nosebleed.
“Maaan, I feel so bad! I really didn’t mean it, ____-san, my fingers just kinda, uh, slipped really badly? I’m sorry to cause you trouble and everything- can I help? Do you need me to hold something for you?”
Okay, blissful moment gone.
He couldn’t find it in himself to even say anything to Haiba Lev, blind idiot extraordinaire. Much to his dismay, the welcome touch of his girlfriend disappeared from his skin and he watched in silence as she quickly brought two hands up in the air and shook her head vehemently.
“It’s quite alright Haiba-san,” she shot him what looked like a comforting smile, “it’s just a nosebleed, and you didn’t cause any trouble at all. Accidents must happen all the time for you, don’t they?”
The grey haired idiot lit up the moment she spoke to him. Kei, used to hearing her voice almost daily, thought it to be quite a soft and youthful sound, but to Lev it looked like the angel Gabriel had descended to sing to him about baby Jesus. The nosebleed was getting worse, and she really needed to stop smiling at Lev like that.
“They do!” Lev replied with a blinding grin, “too bad we don’t all have pretty girls nearby to patch us up when we get hurt.”
Her cheeks turned a vibrant pink and she laughed, the sound cutting through the haze of are you fucking kidding me in Kei’s mind. “What about a lady manager? I’m sure a lot of girls would love to join your team after seeing you play,” she asked.
Lev took a step forwards and leaned down into her. His smile was unwavering, and it seemed to only grow larger as he paused to give her a bold wink. “Wanna be our manager?”
“Oh, I couldn’t, I’m too careless. I’d do a terrible job!”
“Awwww, but your cheers would power me for days! It’d be enough for you to just be there~”
“Then I don’t have to be your manager, I’ll just come and cheer you on during your matches!”
“That would be amazing! I’ll take you around and show you the great places to grab food around Nekoma, and we’ll-”
“I am RIGHT HERE.” Everything around a five mile radius seemed to still at Kei’s glacial tone. It held a light tone of betrayal, fury and a soft hint of certain death, and Lev’s colour drained a little as he remembered that Tsukishima was sitting on the ground the entire time, watching them. Lev had stepped close enough to almost kiss her, and honestly, he might have ended up doing so if it weren’t for the interruption.
Unfortunately, such a conclusion was pretty obvious to anyone who had vision for the past five minutes, and that included Kei. He stood up with a surprising amount of swiftness, turned to Lev, and unleashed.
“If you don’t want to cause trouble next time, how about keeping your eyes to your opponents and not someone else’s girlfriend? Are you fucking stupid? You haven’t said a word to the person you’ve concussed but sure, let’s bounce over and hit on his girlfriend while he bleeds from the nose because it’s not like I have eyes to actually see that you’re hitting on my girlfriend.”
There was a low whistle from somewhere in his peripheral, and Kei would bet his glasses that it was probably Kuroo. That man had observational powers of a god, but zero motivation for subtlety.
“Mind if we take a break?” Without waiting for an answer, Kei silently made his way out of the gymnasium. The soft footsteps behind him let him know that his girlfriend was catching up with him. Good.
They took a seat next to the water fountains, and for a moment there was a tremendous amount of awkwardness between them. Kei cleared his throat.
“I’m kinda bad at noticing these things, aren’t I, Kei?” She spoke first, without hurry, surprising Kei mid-breath. He let out a laboured sigh and chuckled, slightly winded.
“Yeah, you’re pretty crap. Why do you think I had to bring flowers the first time we went on a date?”
“You’re right,” she was laughing now, her eyes crinkled up at the ends, and Kei would be lying if he said that hearing her happy didn’t make him fall in love with her just a little bit more. “You hate cheesy things, but I’d have thought that we were just going out to see a movie as friends if you didn’t.”
“I’m glad you know,” came the deadpan response.
The silence between them was much more comfortable now, and quietly, she laced her fingers in between his and rested their hands on her lap. It was cold, snowing even, and they were both in gym gear, but they kept each other warm. Neither of them kept the time, but soon they could hear the sounds of dissent growing louder in the gym.
“We should probably get back. They’re probably very afraid of you right now, Kei.”
“I wouldn’t count on it,” he muttered as they got to their feet, ready to head back into the gym, “if Lev had enough survival instinct to feel fear, he wouldn’t be such an idiot.”
The hand around his tightened, and he glanced sideways to see her smile brightly.
“You have nothing to worry about, Haiba-san is definitely not my type.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Mhmm. It’s Kuroo-san you have to watch out for, I can’t resist the bad boy type.”
“You-!”
It was a chilly Christmas Eve, but amidst his overwhelming irritation and love for this woman, he barely had time to feel cold at all.