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Practice is going great. Kageyama’s ability to toss the ball right to Hinata’s palm is improving and it’s getting harder for even the imposingly tall Tsukishima to block their quick attacks. The whole practice is an enthralling blur of serves and setting and tossing and jumping and, Hinata’s favorite part, spiking.
Yeah, practice is going great. That is, until, mid-jump, Hinata pulls a weird face and while the team is completely used to his making bizarre, unexplained faces, what they’re not used to is the way he takes off as soon as his sneakers touch back to the gym floor, shouting, “I’ll be right back!”
“Where’s he off to?” Tanaka asks with a furrowed brow, watching him disappear through the sliding doors. Kageyama shrugs it off and offers an uninterested, “Who knows,” before the Captain barks at them to quit standing around and continue with practice despite the sudden disappearance.
As soon as he makes it into the club room and after thoroughly making sure there was no one else in it, Hinata flings his shirt over his head, cursing the unraveling bandage falling off his chest. The stupid clip had come undone in the middle of that last spike and the last thing he needs is to have to try to explain the whole bandage flopping out of his shirt.
With a grunt, he grabs the loose end of the bandage and starts winding it tightly around his chest again. It’s tight and uncomfortable, but it’s so much better than his chest betraying him. No one knows yet, and he’d sure like to keep it that way. He’s finally part of a full team and he’s respected (mostly) and there’s no way he’s going to give anyone any reason to doubt him or look down on him or, the worst he could imagine, bench him or remove him from the team entirely. Even as he thinks it, his face contorts into a sort of disgust at the idea.
As he’s pinning the clip back in place and making a note to himself to stop by the drug store and maybe buy a new one on his way home, he hears the club room door open and sheer panic rips through his entire body. He scrambles forward to grab his shirt and try to jam it over his head before the unidentified person can get a good look at him, but it gets tangled in his arms and he can’t force it down.
The following “Tch” has tears biting at the corners of his eyes. This was the worst possibility, Tsukishima, the smug, arrogant bastard. Hinata manages to shove the jersey back over his chest, but Tsukishima’s words ring painfully in his ears. “Well, that explains a lot.”
Hinata flaps his mouth uselessly a few times, trying to find some words, some way to talk himself out of this, maybe even bribe the condescending jerk into keeping his secret. Before he can connect the words in his brain, Tsukishima speaks again.
“The Captain sent me to look for you,” he mutters by way of explanation before saying, “You’re a real idiot you know.”
An angry, indignant, “What is that’s supposed to mean?!” wrenches its way out of Hinata’s mouth before he can think to stop himself. Yelling at the other like that sure isn’t going to smooth things over in his favor. He’s so screwed, he’s done for.
“You can’t bind like that. It’s bad for your ribs.” Hinata’s eyebrows shoot up. Wait, that’s not the sort of cold, sharp remark he was expecting from Tsukishima. In fact, it even sounded almost… Nice? Nice, from Tsukishima, the biggest asshole on the team? Okay, sure the antagonizing is usually aimed at Kageyama, but Hinata has suffered his own fair share of snotty remarks from the blocker before too. Where was he going with this?
“Are you even listening?” Tsukishima’s voice is once again the haughty, snide tone Hinata is used to. “If you keep binding with a bandage like that, you’ll destroy your ribs and ruin your breathing. Get a proper binder.” When Hinata continues to gape at him like some godawful fish, he scoffs and explains. “My older brother, he’s like you.”
“L-like me?” Hinata scrambles for words and those are all he can turn up.
“Yes,” Tsukishima returns blandly. He doesn’t need to extrapolate; it’s obvious what he means. He moves to his own bag, digging through to find a pen and a piece of paper. He scribbles something on it and passes it off to Hinata. It’s a website. “Get a proper binder, Decoy. You may be able to jump, but you’re already underwhelming in size. Don’t handicap yourself further with poor binding.”
With that Tsukishima turns on his heels and heads out of the club room, leaving a confused and slightly ruffled Hinata behind, staring at the paper in his hands. He’s almost sure this was a dream, a bizarre dream where Tsukishima was (barely) nice and actually gave him advice and, weirdest of all, actually understood him? He blinks hard, shakes his head and pinches his arm. It hurts, so it must be real.
He slips the piece of paper into his own bag in a pocket he’s sure it won’t be lost and stands up straight. Well, no sense in missing any more of practice now.