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“Well I don’t understand why you don’t just get a job,” Noya is saying, looking down at where Hinata lay across the bench of their club room, splayed out in a physical manifestation of his despair. “If it means that much to you, I mean.”
“I can’t ,” Hinata wailed. “Not without sacrificing volleyball. It takes me thirty minutes to bike to school and because morning practice is so early, I can’t do anything beforehand, and we have evening practices, and then I need to bike home, and at some point I need to eat dinner, and I think with how low my last test scores were, my mom won’t exactly be willing to let me cut into studying time.”
“Get a job for the weekends?”
“I can’t ,” he complains, again, louder. “I tried, but nobody’s hiring for just a few hours a week. I even tried to convince the woman who lives down the road from me to pay me to walk her dog, and she said she wouldn’t go higher than two-hundred yen. That’s… basically nothing!”
Noya stares at him for a second, before looking across the club room at Tanaka, who just sort of shrugged a response, not really having been paying attention to what he was complaining about to begin with.
Sensing the silence wasn’t likely to be broken, Hinata huffs and pushes himself to sit up, running his hands through his hair to get it out of his eyes.
“It’s hopeless,” he declares. “I’m never getting those shoes.”
Tanaka, over his shoulder, mouths: shoes? and Noya waves him off. Honestly, he’d been listening to him complain for some significant amount of time, and all he could really decipher was that there was a fancy pair of volleyball shoes Hinata wanted that were too expensive for shoes to be, and he was set on getting them anyway, but was rather unemployable due to everything about him. Also, he just didn’t seem to want a job.
Hinata turned to look up at Noya. “Do you have a job? What are the chances you could-”
“Dude, I don’t have any money for you,” Noya replied, scoffing.
“It was a longshot,” Hinata sighed. “At this rate, Kageyama’s gonna buy them first anyway.”
“What, is there only one pair in the world?” Tanaka says.
“ No , but he’ll win , and that’s even worse than not getting the shoes at all.”
“Is… is it?”
“Yes!”
As he’s talking, Asahi pushes his way into the club, followed just a step behind by Kageyama. They both look a little ruffled by something, though considering they’re walking shoulder to shoulder it seems unlikely that it was anything between them. Kageyama glances over his shoulder and out the door with a sort of discomfort, as if they’d passed something uncomfortable on the way in.
Hinata doesn’t really care though.
“Asahi!” he calls. “Do you have money?”
Asahi jumps, turning around to face him, eyes wide. “Uh- uhm… s-some? I have… some - why?”
“Would you loan me some? Just a bit, I promise I’d pay you back eventually!”
“O-oh… well… I guess it depends on-”
“Asahi!” Noya cuts in, crossing his arms. “Do not give this boy your money. What’s wrong with you?”
“Well he was so polite-”
“No!”
“Noya!” Hinata says, reaching over to shove at the intervening voice. “Don’t ruin this for me!”
“I’m not going to let you take advantage of Asahi like that. You know he’s fundamentally incapable of refusing people.”
Hinata scowls up at him, but before he can say anything, Kageyama chirps:
“Still struggling to get ahold of the money you need?”
“...no, shut up. Whatever. Just go buy the stupid shoes and let me suffer in peace.”
Kageyama is silent for a moment before sighing and saying: “Well, neither of us will get them, then. My mom says since I failed my last Japanese test I have to earn off the grade. Any chore I do goes straight into the Kageyama’s an idiot fund right now.”
Hinata snickers. “Good.”
“Rude!”
And before Hinata can say anything, there’s a very unfamiliar sound outside. Shouting.
Now, the only reason this is unfamiliar is because when Hinata does a quick check of the clubroom, he’s able to see everyone who usually shouts . He and Kageyama are here, Tanaka and Noya are here, and Tsukishima and Yamaguchi had already changed and left a while ago, so they’re probably not even on campus anymore. The only possible explanation for why they were currently raising their voice included a situation that involved at least two people from a pool limited to Daichi, Suga, Ennoshita, Narita and Kinoshita.
Kageyama and Asahi both exchange a look.
So that’s what was ruffling them…
“Ah, I was going to give you all a warning before Hinata distracted me-” Asahi starts to say before the door opens and he immediately shuts himself up, hurrying over to his locker. Kageyama scrambles away too.
He’s not sure what he’s expecting, but it’s still very surprising to see that it’s Daichi and Sugawara that come through the doorway. Both of them are relatively good at keeping both their facial expressions and their tones in check, especially when it came to personal matters, so the moment they’re in the clubroom both of their tons shift down a gear and they continue their conversation with forced civility and minced words.
“I’m not trying to tell you to abandon your family, you cannot be this defensive about something I’m not even saying,” Suga says.
Hinata has never seen their beloved, respectful captain roll his eyes before, but there’s a first time for everything.
“ No , you’re just insinuating that it’s somehow a moral failing for me to prioritize people who need my help.”
“Oh my god - it’s not about prioritizing people who need help, it’s about the fact that they don’t need help and you’re letting them use you anyway. You need to start setting boundaries, Dai. Otherwise this kind of thing is never going to stop.”
“This would be a lot more convincing,” Daichi starts, turning to look at Suga. “If it wasn’t coming from someone who’s primary reason for being upset was that he didn’t get to do what he wanted. You wouldn’t give a shit if this had happened on a weekend we didn’t have plans.”
The rest of the volleyball team is just keeping their faces pressed into their lockers, doing their absolute best impression of people that didn’t exist.
According to the folktales as Hinata had heard them, Daichi and Sugawara had started dating sometime in their second year, and had done a usually phenomenal job of keeping it distinctly outside of school hours. So much so that despite not keeping it a secret, Kurokawa had never actually noticed until after he’d graduated. They were professionals first, for the team, as captain and vice-captain, and it helped calm the worries of a potential conflict of interest.
However, no person was flawless and unlike Hinata and Kageyama throwing each other around the gym, Noya and Asahi fighting, or Tsukishima and Yamaguchi’s snide bickering, when the pair did crack it threw an absolute wrench into the ability of everyone else to do what they needed to do.
Not that they ever directly took out their frustrations on the team, it was just so uncommon that it bordered the uncanny. Daichi and Suga fighting was just an abstract concept that nobody really knew what to do.
Well, except for Asahi, who seems absolutely desensitized to this, finishing changing after practice and grabbing his bag.
“Are you two walking with me or can I leave?” he calls, catching Suga and Daichi’s attention. They both turn in sync, raising their eyes.
“Mhm?”
“Back to town,” Asahi says. “Uh… we usually walk together but it seems like you’ve got your own thing happening, so…”
“Oh, yeah… uh…”
“I don’t know,” Suga says, crossing his arms pointedly. “Do you need to ask permission?” he adds, glancing up at Daichi.
“Excuse me?” Daichi replies back, and before he’s even opened his mouth to reply Asahi has turned and just left the club room, taking that as a no.
“You heard me,” Suga says, turning back to shut his locker. “Because apparently you can’t go anywhere without making sure your parents approve.”
“Oh my god , for the last time, that’s not what happened. They got called away-”
“On a non-mandatory trip, it’s a pleasure trip, Daichi, they didn’t get called away-”
“Well I can’t leave the kids alone!”
“ They’re not your kids! ”
And Daichi shuts his locker, just a little more forcefully than Hinata was comfortable with, flinching back. He can see Kageyama at his locker, trying to judge the distance and guess if he could make it to the exit without being in the way.
Noya has moved over to Tanaka to whisper under his breath to him.
Hinata expects the conversation to blow up, and it probably would have, if it were any other two people.
Instead, Daichi just sighs.
“I don’t want to fight about this with you,” he says.
“I don’t either, but-”
“Look, I already agreed,” Daichi says, cutting him off. “And you can continue to be mad at me, but there’s no amount of yelling that’s going to magically make the kids old enough to stay home alone, or make my parents come back, it is what it is.”
Before he can even stop himself, Hinata shoots a hand in the air.
“4,000 yen and I’ll babysit for you,” he says.
Instantly , Kageyama does the same and says: “No! No! I’ll do it for 3,500.”
“3,000, then!”
Daichi and Suga both turn around in a confused, somewhat disoriented way, having, probably, not really realized how disruptive they had been. They glance at each other and then look back to the two first years.
“What?”
“I don’t know what you’re fighting about but you said kids aren’t old enough to be home alone,” Hinata says. “I take care of my little sister sometimes. I can definitely do it, let me do it, for the low-low price of 3,000 yen.”
“I’ll also do it. I don’t have a little sibling but I am tall enough to reach the sink so I’m probably a better option,” Kageyama cuts in.
“Hey!”
“It’s true!”
“I can reach the sink just fine!”
“Still! I’m a better babysitter, I’m clearly much smarter,” Kageyama says. “Let me babysit for you.”
“No! Let me do it!”
“Okay, okay, one second,” Daichi says, waving a hand. “I’m not sure I’m comfortable letting either of you into my home unsupervised, you’re barely older than my sister.”
“Well how old is she?” Hinata says. “I can get along with anyone . Natsu loves me! We’ll just hang out and play games and everything will be fine!”
“I also have a sister!” Kageyama says, waving his hand to get their attention again. “I’m very good with sisters. Better than Hinata is.”
Suga laughs, a sort of snicker that does not make Hinata feel good, before he says: “You two know that when Daichi talks about babysitting he has four younger siblings, right?”
Hinata and Kageyama both shut up, looking at each other.
“Yeah, they’re all over the place in terms of age,” Daichi says, scratching at the back of his neck. “It’s not so easy as just keeping an eye on one kid. I appreciate… what I’m going to pretend is a sincere offer to help, but-”
“Hang on, you’re saying no? ” Suga cuts in.
“I mean… you’ve met them,” Daichi replies. “Do you think either of these two would even survive? I’m honestly not even super worried about the kids.”
“ Daichi! ” Suga scolds, putting his hands on his hips. “This is a perfect opportunity for everyone to get their way! Plus, you’re too controlling to begin with, this will be an exercise in letting things go. And, if it goes well, you won’t ever have to make me reschedule another date, which I’m gonna be honest, Mr. Sawamura, is occurring at a frequency that is beginning to justify an internal investigation into the legitimacy of your intentions in this relationship.”
Daichi blinks at him.
Kageyama leans over to Hinata to whisper: “ Why is he speaking like a corporate manager? ”
Hinata returns the lean and mumbles back: “ I don’t know it’s probably a relationship thing. ”
When Daichi doesn’t immediately reply, Suga groans and adds: “Just agree to pay the children and then take me on the date you promised! It is not that complicated! They’ll be fine! Look at them, they’re really only half dumb.”
“Wait-” Hinata cuts in. “Both of us?”
Suga turns his attention to them, nodding seriously as if he had decades of experience in hiring babysitters. “Oh yes,” he says. “One of you going alone would end in sure ruin.”
---
Hinata had never been over to Daichi’s home before, but he was honestly quite surprised by it. Most specifically, he’s surprised by how nice it is.
Kageyama is already heading up the path when he arrives, so he waits as Hinata sets his bike against the stone wall and catches up to him.
“Hey,” Hinata says. “It’s Daichi’s family loaded or something?”
“I dunno,” Kageyama replies, knocking on the door. “I’m pretty sure he talks about his parents constantly traveling for work, though, so clearly they’re professionals of some kind.”
Hinata might have managed a response, but Kageyama’s knocking on the door had inspired a cacophony of shouts from inside, and little feet thumping towards the door. When it swings open, they’re greeted by the wide-eyed expression of a little baby Daichi, with truly the only defining feature that changed between them being that this one was seven and this one wore little black glasses over his nose.
This child also, although having opened the door, does not say anything and just stares up at them in the crack he had opened.
Hinata grins.
“Why hello there,” he chirps. “My name is Hinata Shoyo, I'm a friend of Daichi’s? We’re coming over for the evening.”
The kid is still just staring at him. Hinata, a little unsure how to proceed, notices a second boy, looking very similar in age, standing just a few feet behind this one. He’s got a bit shaggier hair, but still all the same features.
Hinata doesn’t love being stared at by two kids, and Kageyama seems no less comfortable with this, but before he can say anything, the little boy in the doorway is suddenly yanked up and away, as Daichi picks him up and opens the door properly.
“Stop being weird,” he’s scolding to the kid now quite happily giggling, as if it were some big inside joke. “Sorry, Hinata,” Daichi says. “He’s in a phase now and just started being as weird as possible at all times.”
Hinata was going to say something, until he watched Daichi adjust the hold he had on the kid to grab him around the middle like a sack of flour and carry him off.
The kid seems delighted, and even more so when Daichi throws him onto the couch.
He can’t imagine handling Natsu that way. Not only because she was way too heavy for him, but his mother would have an absolute fit if he saw him handling the baby girl of the family that way.
“Okay,” Daichi calls, loudly enough that Hinata and Kageyama reflexively fall into line in response to their captain shouting for attention. “Everyone get down here.”
The two little boys scramble to sit together on the couch, and footsteps from above indicate movement, before Hinata and Kageyama see another troupe arriving.
Sugawara is here, which doesn’t surprise them, but Hinata was sure his presence was mostly there to prevent Daichi from backing out of this. He’s a little bit dressed up, though, and, actually, when Hinata eyed Daichi again, so was he.
He feels a little swell of pride. He was not going to back down from this! Sure, he wanted that cash, but now he was also doing a very important job for his upperclassman and he was determined to do it well.
Suga is carrying a little girl, and behind him is another girl, closer to them in age, which is nice. So they’re not all elementary students…
Suga puts the littlest girl down and moves to lean against the back of the couch.
“Okay,” Daichi says. “Everyone, I’d like to introduce you to Hinata and Kageyama, they’re going to be keeping an eye on you this evening.”
“Hi!” Hinata says. “I’m excited to meet everyone!”
When there's silence, Hinata elbows Kageyama in the ribs.
“Ah - uh, yeah, hi,” Kageyama stammers.
“Why can’t you stay,” one of the boys says, leaning on the back of the couch and looking at Daichi. “I don’t wanna stay with these guys.”
“I have plans this evening,” Daichi replied.
“But mum said you were gonna watch us.”
“Hinata and Kageyama are so much fun,” Suga cuts in. “Trust us, they’re like… the best guys on Karasuno’s volleyball team. You’ll love them. Way more fun than you’d have with Daichi or I.”
The oldest girl just squints at them.
“Anyway,” Daichi says, clapping his hands together. “Hinata, Kageyama, let me introduce the gang to you. In descending over, we have Chiyo over there, and then we’ve got Hiroto, Kenzo, and the little cutie currently chewing on the pillow is Yume.”
“Ah!” Suga squawks, turning to grab Yume and forcibly remove the pillow from her mouth. “Stop eating things that aren’t food!”
Yume laughs at him.
“It’s a biting phase,” Daichi says, ominously, before waving the conversation along and not elaborating. “Anyway, I have left cash for you to use to order dinner on the table, emergency contacts are on the counter by the sink, medicine cabinet is fully stocked, take whatever you want from the fridge… okay. I’ve included special instructions on the note, but just so you know, Hiroto currently has an ear infection and is going to need help taking his ear drops before bed, which for him and Kenzo is eight-thirty. Strictly. Yume should be in bed by seven-thirty. She doesn’t have issues sleeping, so that shouldn’t be a problem. Chiyo will self manage her bedtime, so don’t worry about that. Kenzo is allergic to strawberries, though there are none in the house so if you manage to give him an allergic reaction that’s actually rather impressive. Got it?”
Hinata is incredibly overwhelmed but nods along anyway. Kageyama does the same.
“Got it, captain!” Hinata chirps. “You can count on us!”
Chiyo rolls her eyes.
Hinata decides to ignore that.
“Okay,” Daichi says, and Suga pushes himself away from the couch to follow Daichi towards the door. “We’ll be off then. It shouldn’t be too late, I’ll be back around ten tonight.”
“ Ten ,” Suga complained, pouting. “Oh, come on, Daichi, make it midnight.”
“No, I’m barely confident they’ll successfully survive the five or so hours until ten tonight, nevermind any later.”
“ But ,” Suga starts to coo, taking his arm. “My parents aren’t around either this weekend, so if you wanted…”
Sugawara is interrupted by a couch pillow absolutely nailing him in the head and almost knocking him off balance.
“Hey!” Chiyo shouts. “No nasty stuff with my brother, y’hear, Sugawara?”
“Geez! Okay!” Suga says, grabbing the pillow off the floor. Daichi is laughing, but Suga makes a point to make eye contact with Hinata and Kageyama and point at Chiyo. “Watch out for that one. She’s the devil.”
“She is not ,” Daichi chuckles. “She’s sweet.”
“She does have excellent aim, though,” Hinata says, eyeing the distance Chiyo had nailed with him the pillow over.
“Of course I do,” Chiyo scoffed. “I’m a setter. It’s in my nature .”
“You’re a setter,” Kageyama says, perking up in interest and immediate rivalry. “Is that so, well I play setter too-”
“Yeah? I’m probably better than you, so who cares?” Chiyo replies, making Kageyama jolt in surprise. Before he can reply, though, she’s turning and trotting off to the stairwell, heading back up to her room. Halfway up, she pauses, turns around and points at Sugawara to declare:
“You keep your hands off him!”
And then she’s properly gone.
In the resulting silence, Suga says: “ Well! Thanks for agreeing to watch them, okay, bye~ ”
And turns and shoves Daichi out the door before shutting it behind them before Hinata or Kageyama can ask to get off this ride.
---
The door clicks shut and Hinata and Kageyama turn around slowly to face the children. The two boys are leaning over the back of the couch, staring at them with a mix of curiosity and expectation, waiting for orders, or a dismissal, but clearly not being sure if they should even bother.
Yume has started chewing on the pillow again.
“I’ll deal with her!” Hinata declares, and hurries off to grab Yume, being far more comfortable with a little girl than trying to deal with any of the boys.
That left Kageyama to stare at the two boys.
“Uh…”
“Can I… go…?” Hiroto says after a moment, side-eyeing the exit.
“Go? Go where?”
“Uhm… to my room…?”
“Oh… well… what are you going to do?”
“...be in my room?”
Kageyama has no idea what the rules of this household are. He should probably find that list and read over it. Does he need to know what Hiroto is doing at all times? Do they need constant visual supervision or is it just enough to be in the same household?
“Uh… yeah,” Kageyama said, after a moment. “Yeah, go. Uhm… Yeah. go.”
Hiroto scrunches his nose up but settles on just rolling his eyes and grabbing Kenzo, to drag him off upstairs.
Hinata, however, seems much more comfortable, which instills a sense of irritation in Kageyama.
“So what would you like to do this evening?” Hinata says, after wrangling the pillow away from her. “Do you wanna play a game? I can teach you volleyball.”
Or, nevermind, he’s still an idiot.
“I don’t like volleyball,” Yume replies. Hinata makes a strangled noise of distress. “I wanna draw.”
“Oh! Uhm…” Hinata nods slightly. Kageyama figures he can probably manage the one little girl, and passes by him to head into the kitchen, taking another appraising look around the house as he goes. It really is a nice place, with the overwhelming feeling of being well lived in. Even though it’s kept pretty clean, there are definite signs of the uncontrollable rambunctious nature of kids. Chairs left out of place, or toys and games not quite put back right.
The kitchen is well cleaned and orderly, and he finds that note Daichi had mentioned with all the numbers.
It’s a little bit of overkill, Kageyama thinks, but he supposes it’s better to be over prepared than anything else. But there don’t appear to be too many strict rules. Basically, just make sure the house doesn’t burn down, feed everyone, get them to bed.
“This shouldn’t be too bad, right?”
Hinata’s voice surprises him, and Kageyama turns around to spot him, nodding slightly as he entered the kitchen.
“I don’t think. Sugawara was probably being dramatic. What did you do with Yume?”
“She’s at the coffee table in the living room. She seems relatively content. The boys are quiet. Chiyo is quiet. I mean, at this rate this’ll be the easiest job anyone’s ever done.”
Kageyama hummed an agreement. “Let’s hope.”
There’s a moment of silence, in which Kageyama realizes he’d never actually just hung out with Hinata like this before, and he had no idea what they were going to do to kill five hours of time. Talk? Or just do their own things until the kids needed something.
Hinata finds the small stack of money left on the kitchen table, counting it out before saying:
“So what are we gonna get them for dinner?”
“I dunno. What do kids like?”
Hinata thinks about this for a moment, before saying: “Probably should just order pizza, right? Keep it simple, don’t overthink it…”
Kageyama shrugs. “Works for me. I’ll call now and put in the order so we don’t have to worry about it. What do you like?”
“Everything.”
“What?”
“Everything. The more on a pizza, the merrier.”
Kageyama stares at him for a moment, before saying: “Okay, uh… so I’m gonna order pepperoni because we have a four year old to feed, but I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Oooh, yeah, I like pepperoni,” Hinata agrees, before Kageyama turns away to pull out his phone and find somewhere they could order from. Hinata is distracted slightly by looking around the kitchen, he’s only half paying attention to the phone conversation Kageyama is having, talking in a low murmur to the clerk over the phone.
Halfway through the phone conversation, there’s a loud bang from upstairs, followed immediately by a wailing screaming.
Both boys flinch back, and Kageyama whips around, stammering an apology to the person on the other end of the phone and beckoning aggressively for Hinata to go figure out what the hell was going on. Hinata nods and takes off, taking the steps two at a time to reach the small hallway upstairs.
The wailing continues, loudly, but is suddenly cut off by a voice calling:
“Stop it! Stop it, you’re gonna get us in trouble!”
“But that hurt! You’re hurting me!”
“Shut up!”
“No!”
Hinata shoves open the door, finding the two boys on the floor of their shared bedroom. There’s a chair pulled out into the middle of the room, and everything is thrown about and messy, but Hinata can’t for the life of him figure out what’s going on.
Kenzo is holding his leg as if hurt, and Hiroto is standing over him, demanding he stop being hurt.
“What… what’s happening?” Hinata asked.
“Nothing!” Hiroto says.
“Hiroto jumped on me!” Kenzo replies, at the same time.
“I did not! You tattle! That’s not what happened!”
“It is! It is! He did it on purpose, too!”
“I did not!”
“Did too!”
“Did not !”
And then Hiroto is shoving at his brother, and they both go rolling over, thumping into the chair. Hinata is completely at a loss.
“H-hey!” he tries, clapping his hands together. “Hey! Cut that out! Stop it!”
They don’t listen. Kenzo is slapping at Hiroto, still screaming under the assault of his brother.
“Stop fighting! Hey! Ah-” he enters the room a little bit more fully, torn between just trying to overpower the boys and being terrified about the idea of physically grabbing one of his captain’s younger siblings.
Footsteps behind him-
Hinata turns around, surprise cutting through him as he sees Kageyama arrive, having finished on the phone.
“ Hey! ” Kageyama shouts, and it’s probably twelve times louder than anything Hinata would have thought appropriate for a seven and eight year old boy. But damn is it effective. They both freeze, turning to look up at him slowly, eyes wide and watery and scared. “What the hell is the matter with you two? Stop it right now. If you two start fighting again I’m gonna lock you both outside until Daichi comes home, got it?”
They’re just staring at him.
Hinata is a little bit intimidated, not quite looking at him.
“Ah… yes sir…” Kenzo says eventually.
Kageyama nods, before glaring at Hinata, as if annoyed that he hadn’t been able to deal with it on his own, and turns to leave the room. As he does, he nearly crashes into Chiyo, who’s standing in the hallway.
“What?” Kageyama spits.
“You’re awful,” Chiyo replied.
“So?”
“And you’re not special. Don’t yell at them like that.”
Kageyama scoffs. “Yeah?” he says. “So what? If you’re gonna be a brat you can join them outside.”
Chiyo stares at him for a moment, before flicking her hair over her shoulder and tilting her chin up to meet his annoyed glower. “Do it.”
Kageyama blinked.
“Excuse me?”
“ They might be afraid of you, but I’m not. Go ahead. Lock me outside. We’ll see how Daichan feels when he comes home to that.”
Kageyama is caught a little bit off guard. He glances back at Hinata, but Hinata puts his hands up in haplessness, shrugging.
“Whatever,” Kageyama says, before pushing past her to head back downstairs. “Just go back to your room.”
Chiyo glares at him as he leaves, before looking back to Hinata with the same scowl. She relaxes a little bit, before huffing and turning to disappear again. Hinata is left with a sinking feeling in his gut. Sure, it was just five hours, but he was really not interested in Daichi getting a first hand report that they’d spent those five hours yelling at and berating the children.
He turns back to Kenzo and Hiroto, who are sitting up now. He eyes the odd set up of the room, and says:
“So what was it that you were doing?”
“Seeing how far we could jump,” Hiroto replied.
“Oh?” Hinata says, breaking into a grin. “Well, if you didn’t know, I’m actually quite a bit of a jumper myself, it’s actually something I’m known for. Did you know-” but he cuts himself off, because both Hiroto and Kenzo are staring at him with a blank, completely emotionless look. Hinata swallows. “Don’t jump on your brother,” he says, and then turns to leave the room.
---
“Well that didn’t go great,” Hinata calls, trotting down the stairs and trying to find where Kageyama had gone. “You must hate children.”
“All children are mediocre until proven otherwise. These children are no different.”
“Cool, but I don’t really want Chiyo telling the cap that we abused and tormented them, so maybe chill out.”
“Oh, whatever,” Kageyama replies, turning around to face him. “I got them to stop fighting, that’s what matters, right?”
“I mean, only slightly.”
“Look, all we have to do is get through five hours, and then we get paid. I’m not planning on locking anyone outside for the night, but I am pretty sure we need them to, if not respect us, fear us. And they don’t respect us. So.”
Hinata grumbled to himself, sighing before turning to head through the living room.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. We’re basically just here to call the fire department if anything if anything goes bad, right? So let’s just chill out and survive,” Hinata replies, before stopping and staring at the living room. “Ah… Kageyama?”
He feels Kageyama wander up behind him.
“What’s up?”
Hinata points down at the empty living room. “Where’s Yume?”
Kageyama hums, glancing around the definitely empty living room. “Uh… I don’t know…”
“Well unfortunately I don’t think I don’t know is a particularly ‘okay’ response so- Yume! ” Hinata calls, turning where he stood to see if he could spot her. Where would a four year old have wandered off to?
“Yume?” Kageyama echoed, heading through the house. “Hey! Yume, come on out, where are you?”
“Come on- Kageyama! ”
Kageyama jerks his head around. “What? What is it?”
“The front door is unlocked! What if she got out?”
Kageyama hurries over to join him, swinging open the front door to look outside. Hinata pokes his head out as well, looking around the seemingly empty street.
“I don’t see her? Could she even open the door?”
“She’s pretty big for a four year old! Maybe!” Hinata says, trotting down a few steps, panic begins to swell in his chest. Chiyo complaining about them being mean was infinitely more preferable than actually fucking losing the littlest Sawamura. “Yume! Yume! ”
“Okay, oh my god, what do we do,” Kageyama is saying before disappearing back inside the house. Hinata looks back to him, dancing on the balls of his feet.
“I don’t know, I don’t know - should we call Daichi? Surely if she’s actually gone we need to call the cops or tell someone or-”
“Yeah, okay, uh - yeah, uhm…” Kageyama is fumbling around with his phone, looking for the right contact and trying to get it to call, but as he’s speaking Hinata spots a familiar head appearing from down the hall.
“Wait there she is!” Hinata shrieks, bouncing up and rushing over to her. “Yume!”
Kageyama fumbles again and puts the phone away, turning around with wide eyes.
The little girl is staring at them, eyes wide and confused.
“Hi,” she says. “What happened?”
“Where did you go! You just wandered off!” Hinata scolds, crouching in front of her.
“I went to the bathroom,” she replied, looking over her shoulder, and then more uncertainly adding: “I’m sorry…?”
“You can do that?” Kageyama says, over Hinata’s shoulder.
“I’m four,” is her reply, as she frowns slightly.
Hinata hangs his head. “Okay… right…”
“Am… am I in trouble?” she asks, voice a little concerned.
---
They don’t often actually go out for dates. That’s not due to lack of options, really, it’s mostly personal preference. They like to take turns cooking for each other, they like to stay in where it’s private, and stay up late into the night. But occasionally, it’s nice. It’s nice to be out in a nice little restaurant, it’s nice to dress up and play pretend at being autonomous adults. Neither of them were big on PDA, but they keep their hands linked over the table, and Suga cannot help but play with the fingers that intertwined with his, brushing his thumb down the length of one and trying as patiently as he could to understand his boyfriend’s broken sense of paternity over his siblings.
In fact, just the fact that he’s kept his hand out enough for Suga to reach was a relative marvel, considering how distracted Daichi was in checking to see if he’d received any messages or missed any calls.
After yet another moment of him reaching for his phone, Suga says:
“Dai, if you’d received a message, there would be a noise. You’ll hear if it comes in.”
“I know, I’m sorry,” Daichi says, closing his eyes, and probably the only reason Suga hadn’t actually lost his cool over the lack of attention was because he genuinely believed he was sorry - that it was something out of Daichi’s control.
“They’ll be fine. It’s not like they’ve never been left with a babysitter before.”
“I know, it’s… well, we probably should have just found an actual babysitter for them. It’s the Hinata-Kageyama part that I’m worried about. They’re not known for being super responsible…”
“Hinata is fifteen. He can handle ordering a pizza and keeping the door locked.”
“But-”
“ And ,” Suga says. “They will call if they need anything, so don’t worry. If you don’t get a call, everything is-”
Daichi’s phone starts ringing.
Suga thinks he’s about to lose the battle.
“Kageyama’s calling me,” Daichi says, reaching to grab his phone. Before he can pick it up, though, the call disconnects, after barely one ring. “Oh - nope, Kageyama’s not calling me.”
Oh, please, let him be normal about this.
“That’s definitely just a mistake, then. Probably bumped his phone against something. You know how it happens,” Suga says, squeezing his hand. “Please… please just try and focus on me.”
Daichi stares at his phone for a little while longer, before taking in a deep breath and nodding, putting it away.
“You’re right, you’re right, and Hinata, despite his… naivety, does babysit his sister, and his sister is still alive as far as I know, so… I will… trust that that… call… was just… an accident, and not… if they need me, they’ll call back.”
Suga lets his breath out. “Good. Thank you.”
There’s a tense moment, where they just sort of stare at each other for a moment, before Suga hangs his head.
“You’re gonna go check in on them-”
“I mean what if Kageyama’s dead?”
---
Kageyama is just in the process of getting cups and plates ready in anticipation of their pizza arriving when his phone starts ringing, and he fumbles it a bit when he sees Daichi’s name.
He puts the phone to his ear.
“Hello! Sorry, it was a mistake. Everyone is okay, nothing to worry about, thanks, sorry,” he stammers, before Daichi can even say anything.”
“...okay,” he gets, after a second. “Yeah, I just noticed I’d missed a call from you, making sure everything’s good…”
“Everything is fine ,” Kageyama says, counting out the cups he had before moving to the fridge to grab a container of juice. “We’re expecting dinner any second now, I’m getting the kids some juice, Hinata is playing some kind of game with Hiroto and Kenzo, Yume is within my sights, and Chiyo has locked herself in her room in protest because she hates me.”
“That… yeah, that sounds about right. So you’ve got everything under control?”
“Everything is absolutely fine,” Kageyama says, nodding as he grabbed one of the glasses and took it over to where Yume was sitting on the couch, watching a brightly coloured show about sea creatures. He offers the glass to her and she grins widely, thanking him loudly. It’s a little unfair that she’s so cute, Kageyama doesn’t want to like any child.
“Oh, you said you were getting them juice, right?”
“...yeah?”
“Suga had this issue before, I keep forgetting - there are smaller plastic cups in the upper cabinet, for Yume. She doesn’t do well with the glass ones, did you find them?”
As Daichi is speaking, Yume’s little hands fail to hold onto the cup and it drops, bouncing on the couch and sending juice absolutely everywhere, soaking into the cushion, Yume’s clothes, and dripping to the floor. Kageyama is only thankful that it didn’t hit the ground itself, and therefore didn’t shatter.
Yume sniffles, and Kageyama knows she’s about three seconds from bursting into tears.
“Yep, found them,” he replies, loudly, crouching down in front of her and feeling juice seep into the knee of his pant leg. He puts a hand on Yume’s arm, gently trying to calm her down, mouthing: it’s okay… it’s okay… and silently trying to shush her as tears fill her eyes.
Oh god don’t start crying don’t start crying.
“Okay… well, if everything’s good… call me if you need anything, I’ll… try not to bother you again, I think Suga’s about to break up with me anyway, so I’m gonna try not to…”
“Yep, yep, sounds good, sounds awesome, oh, everything’s okay,” he says, that list bit to Yume as she started hiccuping, a soft crying noise escaping her. He tries to shush her, putting a finger to her lips desperately. Oh, please don’t…
“What’s that I hear?” Daichi starts, so Kageyama says:
“Oh! Nothing, go break up with Suga or whatever it says you were doing, okay, bye, thanks-” and he hangs up on him, because he panics.
Yume is crying, but hopefully Daichi hadn’t picked up on that.
“Okay, okay, it’s okay…” Kageyama starts, putting his phone away and picking her up to get her off the damp couch.
Okay.
A couple problems.
- Wet Yume.
- Wet couch.
- Wet floor.
- All things wet with fruit juice. Fruit juice stains. Kageyama, infamously, not great with cleaning.
“Nobody’s mad, it’s okay, mistakes happen,” he assures Yume, who’s clinging to his leg. “Let’s just… uhm… okay, I’m… going to get Chiyo to help you change, and we’ll get you something new to drink, and-”
The doorbell rings.
For one horrible moment Kageyama thinks Daichi has teleported home and is about to beat his ass, but then he remembers they had ordered pizza.
---
They pull all the cleaning supplies they can, from the bathroom and under the sink. Kageyama had started, first, wiping at the couch and noticing that, although the fabric was dark, there was a noticeable mark where the juice had been. He got a cleaner out, spraying the fabric down and scrubbing but not getting anywhere.
He swapped out with Hinata, watching the kids get their dinner from the pizza box and keeping an eye on Hinata at the couch, who looks desperate to pull the stain out. Oh, please…
“Wait!” Kageyama says suddenly, as Hinata was pulling out another cleaning agent. “I think that’s- that’s…”
Hinata freezes. “What?”
“Uh… check the back, I think that’s for the kitchen… is it safe for fabric?”
“What do you mean safe for fabric?”
“I mean - does it have bleach in it? What if we ruin the couch entirely?
Hinata basically drops the cleaning agent, putting his hands up.
“Dude, I don’t know!” Hinata wailed. “I’ve never cleaned a stain like this before, I don’t know how to do it. Daichi is going to kill us.”
“We need help,” Kageyama says, snapping his fingers. “Who do we call?”
“Uhm… Ennoshita?” Hinata tries.
“Stupid, Ennoshita will immediately tell Daichi. We can’t call Asahi either for that reason. Or Kiyoko.”
“I don’t have Kiyoko’s number anyway…”
“Who do we know…”
“Oh!” Hinata says. “You know what, Tsukki is really good with this stuff, right? He’s a little bit of a freak when it comes to hygiene and stuff, so maybe he knows-”
“I’m not calling Tsukishima.”
“Oh, come on, he’s like the smartest person we know, if anyone knows what’ll get juice out of a couch, it’s him.”
“That…”
“It’s either that, Ennoshita, or telling Daichi the truth.”
“Oh, hell no-”
---
Tsukishima is, on paper, studying. In practice, he’s very focused on trying to twirl a pencil around his fingers. It was something he had seen Akiteru doing when he was distracted, and he couldn’t for the life of him get his fingers to cooperate and spin it smoothly. He can get it around a few times slowly, but any speed sends it zipping off into the abyss behind his desk.
He flinches as his pencil hits the wall and disappears, slowly reaching for another to keep trying.
His computer is propped open on his desk, the video call with Yamaguchi that was nearly 24/7 still going. They’d been ‘talking’ for about three hours now, which mostly consisted of Yamaguchi working through their history homework, stopping every ten minutes or so to ask Tsukki to clarify something. At least, that’s how it normally went. Yamaguchi had, at some point, started talking about angler fish, and Tsukishima had been so distracted by his pencil twirling that he hadn’t realized Yamaguchi had been speaking about the fish for the last fifteen or twenty minutes.
Tsukki offers a soft noise of agreement every once in a while as Yamaguchi goes on about various facts of the fish, before delving into great detail regarding why those facts particularly disturbed him.
He apparently has something against deep sea fish.
Tsukishima’s pencil hits the wall again, and falls to the floor. There’s a little graphite mark.
“You’re never going to get that,” Yamaguchi says, cutting himself and his fish stories off.
“Shut up,” Tsukki says, scowling and reaching to grab another pencil from his desk stash.
“Mhm. Anyway, like I was saying, I’m not sure if fish-me would be smart enough to avoid light. But it’s also weird, because, like… there’s no light down there, right? Which means the fish there don’t know what light is , but they’re drawn to it anyway? Is that the same as like… hearing a bump in the night and willingly walking down the dark hallway? Or is light inherently beautiful to all creatures, whether or not their eyes are accustomed to it, and they’re instinctively drawn to it? Light is so… natural to us, but would it not be like an eldritch horror for a creature that had never experienced it before? How does it work as a lure? Anyway, I don’t think I could resist it either, I’m worried that if I were a fish, I’d fall prey to an angler fish very easily.”
“First of all, you’re giving the fish too much credit,” Tsukishima says, before getting distracted as his phone starts ringing. “Second, obviously if you were a fish you’d be salmon, so you don’t need to worry about angler fish.”
“Wh-” Yamaguchi starts to say, processing that, before smacking his hand on his desk. “Hey! That’s an even more delicious fish! I don’t want to be salmon!”
Tsukishima is looking at his phone. “Hang on, Kageyama is calling me.”
“I don’t - wait, Kageyama?”
“Yeah, one second… Hello?” he lifts the phone to his ear, and in his confusion at receiving the phone call he forgets to be mean about it, and instead just lets Kageyama start with:
“Oh my god, Tsukki, you need to help us. Do you know how to get stains out of fabric?”
Tsukishima frowns.
“...maybe. What’s happening?”
“We’re babysitting Daichi’s siblings for the evening and one of them spilled juice and it’s staining the couch and I really don’t want Daichi to kill me, so please, just tell me what to do!”
Tsukishima taps his pencil against his desk.
“Have you tried… using cleaner?”
“Yeah! But… well, there’s so many, and… Hinata mentioned that some cleaners will ruin some fabrics, and… We cannot mess this up, dude! Please, please, you know it kills me to have to ask you for help, so take this seriously.”
“What’s happening?” Yamaguchi is asking, leaning towards his computer screen. “Is everything okay? What does he-”
Tsukishima reaches over to mute his laptop, leaning back in his chair.
“If I come help you, what do I get out of it?”
“Uhh… The satisfaction of being a sometimes not entirely garbage person?”
“Mhm… no, that’s not enough. What else?”
“We’re not getting paid that much for this! I don’t have anything to offer you! Can’t you, for once, do something just because your team needs you?”
“No. You and Hinata need to cover me and Tadashi’s turn to clean the clubroom this week as payment.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Tsukishima sees that Yamaguchi has noticed he’s been put on mute, and has started acting out his own death in front of the camera in a dramatic pantomime. Tsukki tries not to be distracted by it.
There’s silence from Kageyama before he eventually says:
“Fine. Yes, okay. Just… hurry. Daichi comes home by ten, so this needs to be solved by then.”
“Okay, sounds good. I’ll be there soon,” Tsukki says, and after a mumbled goodbye, hangs up the phone.
He watches the muted Yamaguchi get very expressively dragged from his desk and slip onto the floor, before reaching forward to unmute the computer.
“What are you doing?” he says.
Yamaguchi’s face pops up from below the desk. “Angler fish got me.”
“Is that so?” Tsukki says, unable to help but laugh slightly, before mentally kicking himself for it and forcing the smile off his face. It was too late, and Yamaguchi had noticed, which meant Tsukishima was probably going to be subject to more insane mime theatre in the future. “Well, sorry I can’t come over and find your dead body, but I have to go help Kageyama.”
“ Oooh, what did you get for it?”
---
Food is the great equalizer. Once everyone is settled at the kitchen table and eating, they all tend to calm down. Even Chiyo, who seemed to delight in spitting random mean comments whenever she could, was mostly focused on chewing on her pizza. The only hiccup was Yume, who Hinata was trying to coax into eating, but was shaking her head and declaring that she didn’t want to eat it.
It was pepperoni pizza. What kind of four year old didn’t like pepperoni pizza?
There’s a knock at the door.
Chiyo swallows her bite, tilting her head to the side.
“You guys aren’t allowed to have friends over, y’know,” she says.
“Trust me, he’s not a friend,” Kageyama replies, getting up and hurriedly chewing on the last of his crust before he answered the door. His statement seemed to leave Chiyo with a few questions but she held her tongue.
He opens the door.
Tsukishima is standing there, hands tucked into his pockets. Kageyama eyes him, not super used to seeing Tsukki in street clothes, but not being sure why he’s surprised by how much of a nerd he looks like. How did someone everyone considered the epitome of coolness get away with wearing a sweater vest, but when Kageyama showed up wearing a hat to school Tanaka and Suga stood on either side of him and tore him apart for twenty minutes?
“I’m here,” Tsukishima declares.
“Thank you,” Kageyama replies, forcing himself to be polite as he stepped aside to let him in.
Tsukishima takes a look around the house appraisingly, before pulling his bag down from his shoulder and nodding to the couch in the living room. “That one?”
“Yes - cleaning supplies are-”
“I brought my own.”
“You… what? Why?”
“Because I didn’t want to gamble on them being out of what I would need. You want this done right , right?”
Kageyama nods, and Tsukishima just rolls his eyes and walks away. In the kitchen, Chiyo has leaned out of her seat and around the corner to watch them, eyes wide, looking somewhat shocked.
Tsukishima heads off to inspect the couch, and Kageyama returns to the kitchen.
“I don’t want to eat it! It’s yucky!” Yume is saying, shaking his head.
“Please?” Hinata says. “I could try and make you something else, but the house might burn down…”
Yume crosses her arms.
“Okay… well… what do you want to eat-”
“Pizza!”
“This is pizza!”
“Not this pizza! This one is gross and weird…”
“ What are you talking about? ” Hinata wailed.
As they fight, Chiyo hops out of her seat and slinks past Kageyama, heading into the living room to where Tsukishima was knelt, reading the back of two different cleaning solutions to decide which to start with.
She stands above him, crossing her arms.
When he doesn’t acknowledge her approach at all, she clears her throat, and only then does he flick his eyes upwards, a glance so cruelly judgmental that Kageyama, watching from the kitchen, actually felt bad for Chiyo. But he doesn’t say anything.
And, shockingly, Kageyama finds that Chiyo hesitates as well.
Eventually, she stammers: “W-well? What’s your name? Does Daichan know you’re here?”
Tsukishima stares at her for a second, before giving a soft snort and looking back down to his cleaning supplies.
“Did you not hear me? I said -”
And Tsukishima’s head snaps back up again. “I’m sorry, what gave you the impression that I care what you have to say?”
And Kageyama, briefly, expects Chiyo to absolutely explode on him. He envisions having to drag a screaming tween off his bastard teammate and he’d have to explain to Daichi why Tsukishima had a black eye.
But that doesn’t happen.
Because Chiyo blushes , and takes a step back, saying:
“Uhm… this is my house, that’s all… It’s normally polite to ask permission before you just come in… Uh…”
Tsukishima watches her for a second before he opens one of the bottles and begins spraying the solution over the couch. He does notice that it appears some intense attempts to clean the couch had already occurred, quite unsuccessfully. He hopes those two idiots didn’t already ruin it.
“Please leave,” Tsukki says after a moment.
“Oh… okay…” Chiyo says, folding her hands behind her back. “If you need anything, you can ask-”
“I won’t. Please leave.”
“...Okay…”
And Kageyama watches Chiyo back away, before she turns and scampers back into the kitchen.
She stops by Kageyama, looking up at him, and, for the first time, actually looks like a normal child that wasn’t intentionally trying to spite him.
“Is he from your class?”
“Ah, in our grade, but he’s a few classes up. He’s on our volleyball team, though.”
“Ooh… cool… what’s his name?”
“Why do you care?”
She immediately returns to her previous light red shade, looking like Kageyama had just attacked her.
“I don’t care! Shut up! I don’t care at all! I just want to know the names of everyone you invite over, in case I need to report an accident to Daichan!”
Kageyama stares at her for a moment, before saying:
“His name is Tsukishima,” Kageyama replied.
“Tsukishima?” she echoes back, trying the name out as she looked back to where Tsukki was working. “That’s really pretty…”
Kageyama rolled his eyes.
Goddamnit.
---
Hinata is unsuccessful in convincing Yume to eat properly, so the little girl just sits at the table and pouts at her food and picks at the crust with her fingers, and honestly, as long as she does that and doesn’t scream or cry or throw it, he’s fine.
It is approaching her bedtime, though.
He gives Hiroto and Kenzo a warning that they’d need to go to bed soon too, but agrees to let them play on their video game, because he’s pretty sure they’re not allowed evening screen time, but he is far from their parent and just wants them to be quiet.
Chiyo sits on the stares and watches Tsukishima through the bars of the railing, aggressively pretending not to be looking any time he glanced upwards.
It’s irritating in a way neither Kageyama or Hinata can articulate, but they quickly realize that as long as Tsukishima was there , Chiyo was shockingly civil. She probably didn’t want to look like a little kid in front of him, keeping her posture straight and playing at being an adult.
“Yume, you have to go to bed in like ten minutes, is there something I can get you?” Hinata says, after he’s finished cleaning most of the other kids' plates up.
“I want pizza…” she says.
Hinata took a deep breath. “I don’t understand what you’re saying. Why isn’t that pizza good enough?”
“It’s gross…”
“It’s just pizza!”
“But it’s gross…”
“Why?”
“It looks weird, I don’t want to eat it…”
“Can you explain what makes it weird?”
She just points at the pizza.
Hinata closes his eyes to calm himself down.
From the living room, he hears Tsukishima call: “Alright, that looks about done.”
“Oh?”
He pokes his head around the corner, watching Tsukishima zip his bag back up and throw it over his shoulder. He leaves the kitchen, heading over to take a look at the couch.
“Woah!” he says. “You actually got the juice stain out of it!”
Tsukishima hums an acknowledgement. “Anyway, you’re welcome, I’ll be on my way now.”
“Ah - yes, thank you, thank you so much, you’re a lifesaver, but-”
“Tsukishima-san,” Chiyo’s voice cuts in, sweet and angelic from over by the kitchen. “Did you want to have some dinner? There’s still pizza left, you deserve it after working so hard.”
Tsukishima stares at her. “No, that’s fine.”
Hinata grabs Tsukishima’s arm, which makes him almost immediately begin trying to back away and escape the hold, though Hinata follows. “Please, please stay, just… another hour or two. Just hang out, she’s so much more bearable when you’re here,” he says, hushed and under his breath. “ Please. ”
“Oh my god stop it,” Tsukishima says, tugging his arm free. “Fine, fine , but… stop touching me, geez.”
Hinata visibly relaxed, nodding enthusiastically.
“Yes, thank you - okay, go have some pizza and sit there and be pretty for Chiyo to fawn over, I’m gonna go start wrangling ear drops into Hiroto’s gross infected ear.”
“Two things,” Tsukishima says. “Never refer to me as pretty ever again, I will kill you, and second, don’t tell me about infected ears.”
“Got it. Won’t do it again.”
And Tsukishima nods, putting his bag down again and heading into the kitchen.
---
It’s a little bit chilly, but it gives them a good excuse to walk close together. The wind tugs up under the edge of their jackets, kept zipped up as high as they can. He likes walking like this, just the two of them.
They’d taken their time with dinner, but neither of them were big sit in public and chat people, so they’d left the restaurant, strolling slowly through the downtown area.
“Okay, I’m gonna pitch this idea again,” Suga says, after a moment, catching Daichi’s attention. “We extend the babysitting to midnight, and go back to my place, and turn off both our phones for about an hour.”
Daichi chuckled, tilting his head to the side to kiss his forehead.
“We can’t do that,” he says.
“But why not . My parents aren’t home either, and my brother went to stay over at a friend’s…” he lifts a hand up to playfully tug at the collar of Daichi’s jacket. “Since you’ve really turned this second half of the date around, I might even be willing to do that thing you like…”
“Not that you aren’t incredibly tempting, but it’s not fair to Hinata and Kageyama. We can’t just drop a longer job on them without warning.”
“The kids will be in bed by then anyways, what’s two hours of just sitting and watching a movie?”
“Hey,” Daichi says, pulling him out of the main vein of foot traffic, though admittedly the city wasn’t super busy this evening, and wrapping his arms around him. “I love you.”
Suga sighed, pouting slightly before mumbling: “Yeah, love you too.”
“So let’s just enjoy the evening we have together.”
“... fine , I guess I can enjoy spending time with you.”
“Dork.”
“ I’m the dork? What teenage boy has your level of self control? If anyone else was my boyfriend, that would have worked. If I was dating Tanaka, I’d already have him in my bedroom.”
Daichi gives him a quick, soft kiss. “Baby, if you were dating Tanaka you’d have an entirely different set of problems to worry about.”
---
“No, I hate it!”
Kageyama slams the bathroom door shut, staring Hiroto down.
“Your problem, for getting your ear infected,” he says.
“Just come here and let me put this drop in, it’s not so bad,” Hinata tries, trying to wave the kid over to him. “Come on…”
“No, it feels weird and I hate it!”
“Do not make me raise my voice again,” Kageyama warns.
“What are you, my mom?”
“Do I have to be?” is Kageyama’s slightly insane response. It’s not his fault. Hinata has been trying to get this eardrop to get done for ten minutes now.
Hiroto shrinks back slightly. “Can we just skip it tonight? I don’t wanna do it…”
“No, no skipping, now unless you want me to pin you down and force it, let Hinata put the stupid medicine in your stupid ear.”
Hiroto whines, but it’s clear that he’s at least moderately afraid of Kageyama, and Hinata takes the opportunity to play good cop and beckon him over.
“Come here, it’s not so bad…” he says. “It’ll be over in a second and then it’s done.”
With Kageyama bristling and blocking the only exit, Hiroto does eventually relent and slink over to Hinata, who tilts his head to the side and carefully puts the two drops into his ear. Hiroto’s face screws up in discomfort, but Hinata pats his shoulder.
“See! All done!”
“I still hate it.”
“You can hate it and it can be done,” Kageyama replies, before moving to push the door open. “Now go to bed and do not make another problem.”
“...yes sir…” Hiroto mumbles, before scrambling past him and into his bedroom. They can hear Kenzo cackling at his brother’s expense through the walls.
“Now come on,” Kageyama says. “It’s way past Yume’s bedtime and I’m not sure she’s eaten. Can we send her to bed without food? I think that’s abuse. What do we do if she won’t eat?”
Hinata sighed. “I have no idea. Natsu was never a picky eater, she’ll eat anything .”
“Considering how often that kid puts shit in her mouth you’d think she’d be more willing to eat,” Kageyama agreed, following Hinata downstairs.
Hinata snickers along, muttering: “Maybe that’s why she does it, she’s always hungry.”
They find the rest of their little crew in the kitchen.
Tsukishima is leaning back in a chair, mindlessly picking pepperoni slices off of a slice of pizza, though it doesn’t look like he’s made any significant effort to actually eat the slice. Chiyo is leaning her head on her hands and gazing up at him adoringly, which Hinata finds annoying but still less annoying then her berating and insulting them.
Yume, however, appears to have fully finished her dinner and is just finishing up chewing on the crust of her pizza.
Both Kageyama and Hinata stop and stare at her, and then look up at Tsukishima.
“When did Yume start eating?” Hinata asks.
“Who?”
Hinata beckons at the child. “ Yume. When did she start eating? She was calling it gross twenty minutes ago.”
“Oh,” Tsukishima said, tossing another pepperoni slice down to his plate, sufficiently cleaning off the top to just cheese. “She didn’t like the pepperonis. That’s all. So I took them off for her.”
“ You? ”
Tsukishima scowls at him. “Get out of here with that tone. Yume was damn near crying when you left, so I solved the problem so I wouldn’t have to listen to it.”
“But… how did you know - Yume wouldn’t say that.”
Tsukishima takes what only qualifies as a nibble from the pizza slice he has violated before putting it down.
“I dunno, pepperoni is terrible, it seemed like an educated guess.”
“You’re so smart,” Chiyo sighs.
“What are you, a picky-eater whisperer?” Kageyama says.
“Kindred spirits with the four year old,” Hinata agrees.
Tsukishima frowns at them. “Look, I don’t need to sit here and be insulted by you. As far as I’m aware, I’m doing you both a favour. I should get going.”
“No, don’t go,” Chiyo says. “You should stay and watch a movie with us-”
“Look, I’m gonna need you to chill out like ten degrees,” Tsukishima says, turning his attention on her. This has the absolute opposite effect, however, as his attention only serves to fluster her more.
“Okay,” she says, shyly, anyway.
“Uh - yeah, sorry, if you wanna go-”
And Tsukishima pushes himself to his feet, grabbing his stuff and tossing his mutilated pizza into the garbage, before turning to head towards the door.
“Ah- thank you again!” Kageyama called.
“Whatever,” is Tsukishima’s response. “Remember, you two are cleaning the clubroom next Friday.”
“I know.”
“We’re what?” Hinata says, before looking to Kageyama in betrayal.
---
The rest of the evening goes moderately well. Yume is put to sleep, the boys only cause one more screaming disturbance, and Chiyo, although almost immediately returning to her mean self, is sufficiently corralled into behaving better when Kageyama threatens to tell Tsukishima that she wet the bed this night.
So it’s about nine thirty when everything is actually done, and they collapse onto the, thankfully clean, couch downstairs and sigh.
“You know, you’re actually better at this than I thought you’d be,” Kageyama mumbles after a moment, eyes closed. “I guess you weren’t lying when you said Natsu gave you practice.”
Hinata freezes where he sits, unsure how to process that.
“Did you… did you just… compliment me? You’ve never complimented me before.”
“You’ve never had a skill before.”
“There it is, that’s better.”
Kageyama laughs, and it’s an actual, genuine sound, so Hinata can’t help but smile in response.
“You were better than I expected too. I think you were a little mean, but it worked, so…”
“Mhm. I’ve never had to deal with children before, so…”
“It showed.”
And Kageyama is laughing again.
Hinata is exhausted, so he closes his eyes as well, feeling the energy drain from his body.
“I can’t believe actually sociopath Tsukishima Kei is good with kids. ”
“Yeah that’s bullshit.”
“Mhm.”
“I mean, we don’t know he’s good with them, just that he read Yume’s mind. Honestly, I’d believe him to be a mind reader before I’d believe him to like kids.”
“You can be good with kids without liking them.”
“Oh touché.”
---
The house is dark and not burnt down when Daichi and Suga are quietly slipping back in.
“I’m not saying you can’t stay over,” Daichi is whispering, as they shrug their coats off and kick off their shoes. “Just that you will have to deal with Chiyo in the morning if she sees you.”
“You know, her and I have been doing better lately.”
“... really?”
“Yeah, I mean… she doesn’t like me, but I caught her calling me Suga a few times, instead of the full Sugawara , which, y’know, I consider progress.”
Daichi grinned, pulling him in to kiss him gently, before pulling back.
Suga, happy to stay there for a moment, mumbled: “ Thank you for letting them babysit tonight. Even if you were distracted the whole time, it was a pretty lovely date.”
“Mhm… well, thank you for putting up with me.”
“Ah, it’s hard to be that upset about the fact that you love your family so much. Bodes well for our future.”
Daichi blushes slightly, shoving him playfully. “Oh, shut up,” he mumbles, before turning and glancing around the dark living room. The place didn’t look clean , but it certainly hadn’t been demolished, so that was good.
“They certainly didn’t go the extra mile…” he muses, tilting his head to see into the kitchen and noticing the pizza box left sitting out.
“No, but I know why…” Suga sings, softly.
“Mhm?”
And Daichi comes over, stopping by Suga’s shoulder to look down at the couch, where Kageyama and Hinata had fallen asleep together, their difference in height providing the perfect puzzle for Hinata to be nuzzled in against his shoulder, and Kageyama to rest against his head in return.
“They’re kinda cute when they’re not screaming and running around the gym,” Suga sighs, before saying: “Should I wake them and kick them out?” without any mercy.
Daichi stifles himself from laughing, and shakes his head.
“No, no, I’ll get them a blanket. Hinata would have to bike pretty far to get home anyway, and it’s late…”
“Such a kind captain,” Suga teases. “Okay, go ahead, you do that.”
“What are you gonna do…?” Daichi says, before he heads off, because Suga is just standing there.
“I’m gonna take a picture to blackmail them with later,” is the reply, as he pulls out his phone.