Chapter Text
Hinata has never biked as fast as he had this morning in his entire life. After all, this was his first day at Karasuno, the first rung of the ladder that is his journey to defeat that Kageyama from Kitagawa Daiichi.
His smug face, haughty arrogance, and pure talent oozing from every glare at him across the net.
King of the court, my ass, Hinata thought. How can someone be that good? Annoyingly good…
But still, Hinata had to admit that Kageyama looked cool . If only he could look as skilled while spiking…
With the thought of sweet revenge looming on his mind because, yes, he will beat that stone-faced setter one day, Hinata quickly parked his bicycle outside the school gym.
Hinata bounced animatedly up the steps to the modest school gym before he burst through the gym double doors. Mentally pepping himself up to greet the other players, Hinata could barely prepare himself for saying an excited “Hi” when a pair of sharp eyes locked onto his.
What the heck?! Hinata’s eyes widened at the sight of his newly anointed public enemy number one. Kageyama was mid-spike, tossing a volleyball gracefully into the air.
“Kageyama Tobio? What are you doing here?” Hinata sputtered clumsily.
The boy in question casually slammed the ball with a resounding thwack against the court, twisting his head to respond to Hinata with a-
“I go to this school, too,” Kageyama retorted with the energy of a meteorologist reciting the daily weather report.
Hinata began stuttering, cheeks turning red and hands waving around in unintelligible gestures.
“I— you—,” Hinata tried to exclaim. “What—”
“Yo-you’re supposed to be my opponent, not my teammate ,” Hinata reminded the tall setter of their shared vow to defeat each other. “This is totally against the rules!”
Kageyama rolled his eyes, before turning his back perpendicular to the orange-haired boy, who looked like he was decomposing into a sad mushy pile of tangerine in front of him.
“Dumbass, there’s no such thing as rules on what school we should go to!” Kageyama huffed in annoyance. “Plus, you’ll need all the help you can get anyway, and I’d pretty much be your saving grace… if you can even get on the team.”
“Bwa— hey, that is extremely mean,” Hinata whined. And probably true… he thought quietly to himself.
But, hey, maybe he can milk this guy for what he’s worth, Hinata thought. What’s that saying, anyway? Keep your enemies close and your friends closer? Or, is it the other way around?
In any case, Hinata reasoned this was unfortunately his life now. It was too late to transfer to another school this late in the fall, and the bike ride to Karasuno couldn’t be beat.
Hinata grumbled and hesitantly stuck his open palm out.
“Okay, well, not that I’m begging for help or anything,” Hinata began, ready to put aside his vendetta against the setter for the sake of volleyball. “But I guess this could be a good learning opportunity for me… and your sets were pretty guwah …”
Kageyama stared at the hand with a placid expression that left endless interpretations to be made.
“...” Kageyama simply turned to his side and monologued to the net.
“I’ll assess your spikes this season before I give you any positive feedback,” he said, rejecting the shorter boy’s attempt at amending their strife.
A silence stretched for long enough to be uncomfortable and their breathing to be heard. Then, the gym was met with a deafening onslaught of Hinata’s screeching and jumping.
“Why are you so weird ?!” Hinata exclaimed while Kageyama smirked during his outrage.
-
After a tumultuous tryouts process (and good thing they even passed that , since they decided to bet their spots with a surprise 3v3 and whatnot), Kageyama and Hinata emerged last week sporting their jerseys donned with the numbers 9 and 10 respectively.
And although they were still dedicated to beating each other, they ultimately forged an unusual camaraderie between themselves.
Daily warmups and races to the gym resulted in points toward a running tally. Currently, Kageyama had 24 on Hinata’s 20.
Nothing was off the table — whoever had the most service aces or scored the highest on their English tests meant one of them was buying meat buns after a particularly long practice or bringing milk cartons to their weekend volleyball sessions.
Gradually, a rivalry that would make NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys jealous evolved into a symbiotic relationship. Kageyama would scratch Hinata’s back, and Hinata would unceremoniously clean up the volleyball supply closet after messing up his receives all practice.
One school day, Hinata biked up to school before parking at the rack. Ruffling his bangs out of his eyes, he secured his grip on one of his backpack straps, ready to climb the several flights of stairs to the Karasuno gym.
That is until a certain raven-haired figure materialized in the distance. Suddenly, adrenaline rose in Hinata’s chest, and his feet began to get restless.
“Eh, Bakayama!” Hinata shouted, piquing his attention. Kageyama, who was similarly enjoying the same morning stroll, visibly steeled at the sound of the shorter boy’s voice.
The two held eye contact like a gazelle and a lion crossing paths in the wild grasslands, waiting to see which would make the first move. Waiting to see who’d make the first mistake.
In an instant, Hinata willed his legs to race towards the staircase to the gym as Kageyama exploded in the exact direction as the former.
Matching stride for stride, arms moving in wild fashion, Hinata and Kageyama were gunning for the gym like their lives depended on it. And it might as well have since Kageyama only held the lead in their invisible competition by two points since yesterday’s practice.
Two pairs of sneakers squeaked against the concrete, inching closer and closer to the gym entrance. Heavy breathing accompanied even heavier stomping as Hinata and Kageyama were getting closer and closer…
Kageyama swore he only had a meter left until the doors. But Hinata was sure he could throw himself belly-first to gain some extra distance. Surely that wasn’t cheating, right?
When the boys were ready to declare their rightful win, it was only then that they noticed the door was very much closed and not at all open. They quickly attempted to freeze their accelerating pace, but it wasn’t quick enough as the shiny grey metal of the building came closer to their faces-
Hinata and Kageyama landed with an overwhelming crash and a large thud , tangling themselves in a large human pretzel made of their athletic jackets and backpack straps.
The dust settled, and Hinata was just about ready to claim his obvious point for the race — a win’s a win, no matter the casualties involved.
“Ha, Bakageyama, I won and you can’t even deny i-” Hinata abruptly stopped mid-sentence.
He was just about to gloat in Kageyama’s stupid face, already outlining his snack requests at the vending machine. However, said face was currently occupied…
On Hinata’s leg.
Kageyama’s face was smothered all up in Hinata’s thigh, which was suspiciously feeling damp. At a closer glance, Hinata saw Kageyama’s head facing down, meaning the wet feeling must have been his lips .
And it wasn’t really anything, Hinata tried to reassure himself as his brain was shorting out. It’s not like Kageyama is choosing to velcro his lips on Hinata. But the feeling of his teammate’s mouth on a section of skin that was very close to the hem of his shorts…
“H-hey!” Hinata sputtered out, trying his best to push the other boy’s body off of his. “Get off of me!”
In his attempts to extricate himself away from Kageyama limb by limb, the problem somehow got worse , and the setter was now pressing his mouth even harder on Hinata’s skin.
Hinata blushed violently against his will. If he knew that he’d have to get into this horrible esoteric yoga pose today just to win a point over Kageyama, who was also currently smooching his thigh (and trapped against his will), he would’ve worn his track pants today instead of shorts — his inner fashionista could shine another day.
“Why are you making this worse?” Kageyama spat out the best he could while currently suffocating. He thought kicking back would have aided in his quest for freedom from Hinata’s self-erected suffocation torture chamber, but as fate would have it, the issue only escalated.
Why is Bakayama talking right now ? Hinata thought. His previously pursed lips began to part open, and Hinata could feel the tickle of Kageyama’s moving mouth on his thigh. There was an occasional swipe of his tongue threatening to lick at the skin beneath, and Kageyama was so unaware.
Hinata could feel his heart beating faster and faster against his ribcage, wishing this would be over, and he could just play volleyball like he’d intended when he joined this school—
“Hey, kids, you all are here bright and early toda-” a voice chimed from behind them.
As Tanaka rounded the top steps, he was met with the straight-faced setter and his red-cheeked hitter, who managed to claw his leg out of Kageyama’s grasp.
“Save me, Tanaka-san,” Hinata wheezed, totally defeated from just the first hour of the school day, thoughts of points and meat buns evaporated from his immediate consciousness.