#short pigtails for the win idc

[highoncatfood]

shinigami redesign in the works.

[jercythesiscrying]

Of Crushes and Cliches | Poly first-years, G, 2.1k

NaNoWriMo Day 17: Staple Phrases

Summary: Five times Hinata realizes he has a crush on his teammates, and one time he realized they had a crush on him too.

Literally just chock-full of fic cliches as inspired by this post and then some.

Read on Ao3

A/N: FUCKIN FINALLY FINISHED THIS FIC  \o/  UN-BETA'D BUT IDC I'M REJOICING. Shout-out to the Stream Team for constantly indulging me with fic ideas because I got so stuck on this gd fic. Chalk up any ooc-ness to the fact that fic cliches sometimes end up ooc???  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It takes a while for Shouyou to realize he may have a thing for his fellow first-years.

Like, a long while. Like over the span of months.

It should have been obvious, but Shouyou’s not the brightest, so he counts it as a win that he realized he was feeling things in the first place.

— 1: For Tobio —

The first time Shouyou notices is with Kageyama. He’s always been taller, more built than Shouyou, and Shouyou tries to reason that he was bound to find that attractive after hanging around his partner so much.

During break one practice, Kageyama stretches his arms above his head, hands curled into fists. Shouyou watches absent-mindedly, drinking from his water bottle when his eyes catches Kageyama’s shirt riding up, flashing a strip of skin. Shouyou can see his lower abdomen, where a smattering of dark hair disappears below his shorts –

Shouyou chokes on his water.

“Hinata!” Yachi exclaims. “Are you okay?”

He nods his head despite his coughing. “I’m”—cough—“fine!”

Shouyou continues to choke, hand slapping at his chest instinctively. Eventually, the coughing subsides, and he clears his throat with an apology.

“Dumbass.”

He turns to see Kageyama rolling his eyes at him, noticing that his shirt fully covers his torso once more. When Kageyama walks away, Shouyou forces himself to tear his eyes away from the setter and fails, drawn towards his partner’s ass by his body’s own volition.

He tries not to think too hard about his newfound fixation.

— 2: For Tadashi —

The next time he notices is with Yamaguchi.

The other middle blocker invited Shouyou over to his house for desserts, and Shouyou was hyped up because, duh, free sweets are always exciting!

“Thanks for coming, Hinata!” Yamaguchi says as they step into the genkan.

Shouyou mumbles a soft Ojamashimasu as they toe out of their shoes.

Yamaguchi continues, “Tsukki’s busy so I’m glad someone can try this cake for me!”

“It’s fine! Thanks for inviting me, Yamaguchi.” He smiles wide, hoping to show his sincerity.

He takes in Yamaguchi’s home: neat, small but homey. Yamaguchi walks down the hallway, waving Shouyou forward.

“Come in! The cake’s in the kitchen!”

He follows Yamaguchi into the kitchen, padding across the living room. When he sniffs, he lets the sweet smell of cake lead him.

“You can take a seat,” Yamaguchi chirps, digging into the fridge. As Shouyou slides into one of the chairs by the kitchen table, the other boy asks, “Is milk okay?”

“Sure!”

Yamaguchi places two glasses of milk on the table while Shouyou eyes the frosted cake.

“It’s strawberry shortcake!” Yamaguchi says. “Tsukki would usually share with me but, like I said, he’s busy today. Oh! Let me get some plates.”

“He’s missing out,” Shouyou mumbles, licking his lips.

Yamaguchi returns with two plates, two forks, and a cake knife. He cuts two even slices, placing a plate in front of Shouyou.

“Alright, ittadakimasu! ”

“Ittadakimasu! ”

Shouyou scoops a piece of cake onto his fork, biting into it. He gasps at the flavour.

“Woah, it’s amazing!”

Next to him, Yamaguchi moans. Shouyou immediately freezes.

“Mmm, so good!” Yamaguchi sighs, eyes fluttering closed.

Shouyou quietly watches with wide eyes as Yamaguchi eats his cake, tongue peaking out to occasionally lick his lips. Sometimes, he lingers with his lips around the fork, as if he can’t get enough of it entering his mouth. And if that wasn’t enough, his cheeks are so full that Shouyou starts to notice the freckles spread across his face, peppered like constellations in a starry sky.

Shouyou gulps, wincing when he realizes that his throat is suddenly dry.

“Hinata?” Yamaguchi says. “Is the cake okay? You’ve only had one bite.”

Shouyou snaps out of his reverie, gaze whipping to the milk in front of him. He grabs the drink, gulping it down.

“Sorry!” he mumbles. “Just, uh, thirsty.” He tries not to blush at Yamaguchi’s adorably confused expression. “It’s good though, I promise!”

Yamaguchi beams, and Shouyou hopes that his hammering heartbeat isn’t as loud as it seems.

He’s grateful that Yamaguchi doesn’t make any more obscene noises after that.

— 3: For Hitoka —

Then it happens again with Yachi.

She’s visiting Shouyou’s home for a tutoring session. Normally he and Kageyama would do them at her place, but with his mom out and Natsu home alone Shouyou had no choice but to stay. He’s grateful that Yachi agreed to make the trip all the way over to his house, and surprised that Kageyama agreed to come at all.

It’ll be good training for me, Kageyama said. Extra cardio when I walk home. Shouyou only rolled his eyes.

Now, though, Kageyama’s taking a nap on the floor. Next to him is Natsu, who was busy having her hair braided by Yachi until she also fell asleep. It’s almost gross how cute Shouyou finds it.

Out loud, he says, “Aww, I can’t believe that jerk passed out on us!”

Yachi laughs. “Well, as long as it doesn’t happen every time we study, it’s okay.” She grins at Shouyou. “I’ll make an exception for today.”

When she continues to beam at him, Shouyou gulps, averting his gaze before he says something dumb like how pretty Yachi is when she smiles.

“Hinata, are you okay?” she asks, crawling over to where he sits on the other side of the table.

Shouyou definitely does not squeak. That was totally not a squeak.

“Uh, y-yeah! Just fine!” he blurts out. He makes a show out of stretching his arms and back. “I guess I’m tired too, or something...”

Yachi hums, considering him. He tries not to gulp under her scrutiny.

“Hm, before she fell asleep, Natsu-chan said she also wanted me to do your hair.” She grins again, but this time there’s a hint of mischievousness that Shouyou’s not used to seeing on her.

“Yachi-san,” he pleads, “it’s fine, seriously, you don’t have to listen to Natsu—”

“But Hinata,” she whines, and—oh god, is she pouting now?—Shouyou is not going be okay after this, “how could I ever say no to her?”

“She’s asleep!”

“When she wakes up she’ll be very upset!”

Shouyou groans, cheeks flushing red. Yachi continues to look at him with her bottom lip jutting out, and he sighs.

“Ugh, fine,” he relents, “but my hair is nowhere near as long as Natsu’s.”

Yachi scoots over with a bag of Natsu’s hair clips before kneeling behind him.

“That’s okay! I’m not going to do anything drastic.”

She cards her fingers through her hair, and Shouyou sits as still as he possibly can. His heart races at her soft touches, delicate fingers slightly scraping his scalp. He closes his eyes, hoping to get lost in the feeling. She moves around him to place hair clips where she deems fit, not that Shouyou notices because he’s too busy trying to control his breathing.

“Ta-da!” she eventually announces. “All done!”

Shouyou releases a breath he didn’t even realize he was holding.

He slowly opens his eyes to see Yachi holding Natsu’s Ketty-chan mirror in front of him, and he tries not to grimace at the pigtails in his hair. He guesses he looks cute, definitely a lot like his sister, but that’s kinda the last thing he wants to look like.

“So?” Yachi asks expectantly. “Good enough for Natsu-chan?”

She’s beaming so brightly at him that he can’t help but smile back.

“Yeah!” he says warmly. “It looks great, Yachi.”

Later, when Kageyama and Natsu wake up to find him covered in glittery clips and brightly coloured hairties, he whines way less than he normally would at their teasing because it’s well worth Yachi’s satisfied giggling.

— 4: For Tsukishima —

He finally clues in because of the solar eclipse.

“Oh no,” Tsukishima—the giant douchebag—deadpans, “it’s starting.”

He slowly starts to lean back against Shouyou, back pressing into his face and resting his entire weight onto him. Tsukishima is basically a beanpole, but he’s a 190cm beanpole, and Shouyou can not hold up his entire weight.

They’re supposed to be warming up for their practice match but instead Shouyou is trying not to suffocate.

“STINGYSHIMA!” he yells, trying to push against Tsukishima. “GET OFF! YOU’RE HEAVY!”

“But the solar eclipse is happening,” Tsukishima says, and even though he’s drawling in his usual deadpan Shouyou can tell that Tsukishima is smiling.

Which would be a whole other problem if Shouyou wasn’t being crushed by 68kg of Karasuno’s main middle blocker.

“GWAH!! Tsukishima!” Shouyou tries again, but the bastard doesn’t stop. Shouyou growls. “I hate you so much!”

“Sucks to suck, Shorty.”

The only good thing is that Tsukishima smells nice. Shouyou doesn’t have a choice but to breathe him in because his face is pressed against Tsukishima’s back, but his teammate smells like tea, laundry softener, and also something uniquely himself. Probably sweat, if Shouyou had to think about it.

He doesn’t get the chance to because Tsukishima continues to lean back against him.

“Gaaah!! I’m gonna fall!!” he shouts desperately. His footing is already starting to slip from Tsukishima’s weight. “Tsukishima, I’m serious!!”

“Ugh, you suck,” Tsukishima retorts, but he thankfully stands up straight again.

Shouyou thought all he’d feel was relief now that he’s not supporting Tsukishima’s weight anymore, but instead he realizes he’s kinda sad. He doesn’t think he ever had that much physical contact with Tsukishima before, and while it was at the cost of Shouyou’s dignity, it was also really nice, which is both really confusing and also making his heart race.

He glares at Tsukishima, hoping to hide his growing embarrassment.

“You jerk!” he groans, straightening himself out. He quickly smoothes over the wrinkles in his uniform where Tsukishima kept squishing him.

Tsukishima scoffs, lips curling upward in a lopsided smile. It’s not quite his usual smirk, more soft and—fond? Which can’t be right because Shouyou doesn’t think Tsukishima particularly likes him, much less is fond of him.

“Hmph, I guess who have more strength than I give you credit for,” he says, and this time Shouyou picks up a hint of pride in Tsukishima’s voice, which also can’t be right because all the dickhead does is make fun of him. There’s no way Tsukishima is proud of him over something dumb like this.

Right?

He continues to glare at Tsukishima, who looks back down at him, and in their stand-off Shouyou really gets a good look into Tsukishima’s eyes. His golden orbs are alight with amusement, kinda like when he gets into those weird, flirty rivalries with an opponent’s middle blocker.

In the middle of Shouyou internally exploding at the thought of Tsukishima flirting with him, he leaves because Yamaguchi calls him away, and Shouyou is left slightly dumbfounded at this new development.

— 5: For all of them —

Somehow, he makes the connection just before Valentines’ Day.

He has a really hopeless crush on four of his teammates. He doesn’t know how it happened, but it did and now Shouyou has a choice to make:

Either ignore all of it and continue being stupidly awkward around them, or act on his feelings and hope that none of them are mad at him.

He buys them Valentines’ Day chocolate insanely stressed because he actually tries to buy something special for each of them. Chocolate chip candies for Kageyama that apparently go well with the milk he likes; simple truffles for Yamaguchi; a box-set for Yachi with a really pretty design that he thinks she’ll like; and strawberry shortcake flavoured M&Ms for Tsukishima.

It’s over-the-top and Shouyou definitely spent like a month’s worth of allowance on four different people.

But he also really, really likes his teammates a lot.

On the 14th, he skips down the hallways with his schoolbag full of chocolate, humming a silly song to himself as he deposits each gift into a locker. Surprisingly, he’s way less nervous about giving Valentines’ Day chocolate than he thought he’d be.

Then he finally finishes his deliveries, and the panic sets in. He rushes to the bathroom afterwards and hopes for the best.

— &1: For Shouyou —

On White Day, after a month full of even more fumbling and Shouyou generally acting like an idiot in front of all his crushes (and his classmates, and the volleyball team, and some of their opponents), Shouyou finds his fellow teammates standing by his locker.

He can see them from down the hall, talking amongst each other about something Shouyou can’t make out, all of them with varying shades of blush on their faces.

Walking towards them, he wonders why everyone is so tinkled pink until he notices the box of chocolates in Yachi’s hand. He gasps when he eyes the card taped on and makes out everyone’s signatures written on it.

Apparently the noise makes his presence known.

“Hinata-kun!”

“Hinata!”

“Took you long enough.”

“Hurry up so we can give this to you, dumbass.”

The four of them crowd close, pulling him into a chaotic hug that’s all elbows and squeezing, and he’s sure his skin is bruising from where the chocolate box is digging into his side.

But Shouyou wouldn’t have it any other way.

(More notes on Ao3.)