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“Hinata, why do you always wear scent blockers for games against other teams?” Asahi asked as he watched their small teammate working on applying them to his neck. At least these weren’t the ones big enough to make nearly all the skin on his neck disappear. He still remembered how the omega had looked wearing those big patches.
His question caught the attention of a couple of their teammates stretching and changing near them. It earned him expressions ranging from “what the fuck kind of question is that?” to “Thanks for asking, I was wondering too”
His smile turned awkward when Hinata turned to him without replying for a moment. Suddenly, he felt like maybe he shouldn’t have asked and that it was a strange question. “Ah, sorry if it’s a sensitive subject!” he said, backtracking a little. “I was just curious, since no one is actually required to wear them unless they are in rut”
After all, none of his alpha counterparts was actually required to wear them aside from the reason Asahi had brought up. Sure, some still decided to wear them for matches, but like everyone else on their team, most didn’t. He had heard of coaches asking their whole team to wear them, but these were extremely rare cases.
So there was no reason Hinata needed to.
“It’s okay,” the redhead smiled, hand dropping from where they had been applying his patches a moment ago. “I think it’s just more convenient for everyone this way,” he laughed, even if it sounded a bit forced.
This had Asahi looking a little confused, wondering how it was convenient. It wasn’t like anyone on the team would ever complain about his scent, already more than used to it. And he couldn’t see why the other team would, either, if none of their alphas wore patches themselves.
“I’ve had people in the past complain about it, in PE classes and other sports events I participated in,” Hinata admitted after seeing his confused expression. Everyone around saw how his smile turned a little tense. “I just got tired of people telling me I was distracting others”. ‘Especially alphas’ he decided to leave out of his reply.
Hinata preferred not to remind himself too much of all these people, teacher and other adults included, lecturing him about how it wasn’t fair for him to distract his alpha classmates like this. He had always been an athlete and someone who loved doing sports; for that reason, he always found himself hitting the same wall of complaint.
“Plus, when I wear them on the court, other players don’t focus on me quite as much, at least not for the wrong reasons,” he continued, a bit more enthusiastic about it. “I want their eyes trying to follow me because I’m hard to catch up to, not because of my scent”
Asahi nodded at his explanation, something in him not feeling quite right at the thought of Hinata feeling obligated to wear them on the court.
But if it was his choice and he found some positives out of it…
“For someone who insists on wearing them all the time, you sure are really slow at putting them on,” Kageyama said, which immediately had Hinata huffy.
“Am not!! Also, it’s not that easy to put them on yourself, you know,” the omega replied, trying to defend himself.
“Yeah, right, I can do it three times faster by myself,” the alpha argued back.
“I bet you’re slow too!” Hinata snapped, angrily opening the package to put his patch on quickly. “I never see you wearing them, so you must suck at putting them on,” he huffed. This had the setter ticked off immediately, barking at Hinata to give him a scent patch so they could time themselves and see who was faster at doing so.
“Hey, you two, keep it down!!” Ukai yelled from where he had been talking with Daichi and Takeda. “And quite wasting those patches, they aren’t cheap!” he added as he saw Kageyama about to open one. “You better wear it all game or else!” he warned, “I swear, kids these days”
On another day, many games later…
Karasuno had just won the first set for their second match of the day, and everyone was moving and making the most of the time left before the second set.
“Man, I didn’t expect that little omega to be this fast and jump so high,” player no.8 said as he joined his teammate. “Does he have springs in his legs or something?”
“Yeah, I mean, I had heard rumours about him, but I wasn’t expecting that out of him either,” no.6 admitted before drinking some water. As he said that, he turned to look at the opposing team’s bench, searching for the omega in question.
They both watched in shock as two alphas on his team suddenly started ripping the patches he was wearing off of him, which had already started to come loose a little. Despite how quickly they acted and came at him, the omega didn’t flinch even a little. He stood straight with his chin a little higher to allow them to peel them off, likely to apply new ones.
“If they weren’t his teammates, I would have thought they were about to attack him,” no.8 cringed.
Yet they looked so efficient in what they were doing, as if it were a routine they had done more than once before. Taking the scent-blocking patches off of him, with surprising gentleness despite the speed, likely not to harm their teammate. It wouldn’t be good if they damaged the skin and caused rashes.
They only paused to allow the tiny middle blocker to wipe away any sweat, making sure the skin was as dry as possible. Only then did they start moving again, ready to stick new ones back where the older ones were. They barely even took the time to adjust the position, as if they had already done this multiple times before and knew exactly how to angle it.
And maybe they had.
All the while, they were listening closely to what their coach was telling them, replying while working. In no time, they were done applying the fresh patches. It sure looked much faster than what anyone could do by themselves between two sets.
“No way,” no.6 said when he saw that setter start rubbing his wrists against the patches. It was very clear he was scenting his teammate, right in front of everyone. No making it subtle or hiding it, just like this right in the open.
“That’s why we couldn’t smell him much at all, even those simple patches can’t take away leftover scent,” his teammate pointed out. While standing with everyone else, it felt like they couldn’t pick up a more distinctly omega scent; this was likely why.
“Yeah… and I’m sure it wasn’t that setter’s scent on him earlier either,” no.6 said, trying to recall more properly. “Do every one of them do it or what?” he then asked.
They both startled a little when that loud-mouth buzzcut player suddenly turned towards them, glaring at them. They immediately looked away, instead following their coach’s sudden call to move before the next set would start.
When no.6 stood in front of that little middle blocker, he couldn’t help but notice the scent coming from him. It was the same as the setter, even if weaker.
What a strange team.
And before anyone knew it, new stories about Karasuno started making their round in the different teams of their prefecture. Everyone was curious to see if they would be able to witness those kinds of events too, or if these were all just weird rumours.