#this is why i kept him out as long as i could u__u

[cupcakemulti]

“Tch, this is hardly a mansion! It’s an overglorified summer home.” Loki, I put a lot of effort into this. “Do you have floor plans?” No, I can’t draw a straight line to save my life. “Then what you’re telling me is that this is just a figment of your imagination with no real form whatsoever.” ...Well, when you say it like that. “Ah, yes, that’s what I thought. Still, I can work with it. I’ll be taking the uppermost floor for myself.” Loki, that’s an entire floor! “And?” Your housemates will be mad? “And? None of them could do much to oppose me in the slightest. A lizard, a girl with a wand, a woman pretending to be a villain, an actual dog, a highschooler, three scrapbuckets, some woman with a lot of rifles (who is ironically the biggest threat to me), and a child that’s been turned into a machine. Not that scary of a line-up, honey.” ...I really hate you.

[janiedean]

... the tyrion/sansa hairdresser/mortician au no one was expecting but happened

well @meri-vaahtoaa I TOLD YOU IT WAS GONNA HAPPEN TODAY AND IT HAPPENED, have a for now untitled tyrion/sansa mortician/hairdresser au inspired by this post with bonus guest star jeyne p. u___u don't look for angst, also extremely background mentioned jb plus jaime & bronn being themselves in the backstory, have fun u__u

This fucking teaches me to be drunk around both my brother and Bronn, Tyrion thinks for the umpteenth time as he keeps on walking - he needs a damned salon and he needs it now but he also had to get out of the neighborhood because like hell he’s going to risk running into anyone who knows his father. That’s the… least thing he needs, honestly, as if his life choices aren’t already something he has to fight for every other moment and he can’t fucking wait to be out of the house, which should be soon -

If he doesn’t get thrown out of his internship because of his horrible drunk choices.

Why did they have drinks together, why did they have drunk bets, why did he bet with Jaime that he would dye his hair bright blue if he stopped beating around the bush and confessed to the bartender that he’s been into her since they started coming to that specific place for drinks because he chickened out of it for months, except -

Except Jaime went and did it and it turned out that she actually had been looking back and Tyrion hadn’t been wrong in that assessment, but then he had to do it and he actually went and used a do it yourself dye and -

Well.

He honestly can’t go and start his apprenticeship with blue hair that’s also… well, not even professionally dyed, and considering the arguments that it created the least thing he needs is going somewhere he’d be recognized.

So, he’s plenty out of the neighborhood, but he hasn’t found someplace that felt… well, not extra fancy. The second-least thing he needs is extra fancy shops where people would send looks his way that he could absolutely do without.

Also, it’s fucking hot. Why did he do that in the middle of summer again? And why couldn’t he have bet something more reasonable - right, it was Bronn’s idea and they were drunk. Fuck.

He walks a bit more, wondering if maybe he should sit down and check on Google Maps if he’s ended up in the only area of the city that doesn’t have any, and then he sees one on the other side of the road - fine, he stopped because he wondered who names a hair salon Beauty and the Beast, but it costs nothing to have a look from the outside, right?

He crosses the street and walks up to the door.

First thing, the pricing list outside it looks… well, it’s not cheap, but it’s certainly not the ridiculous fares they ask where his sister goes to have her hair done, which is exceedingly good since he doesn’t want to spend a salary’s worth of an average office employee to get that blue crap out of his hair. He looks through the glass door - there is just one woman inside getting her hair done, which is also good because the least people around the shorter the wait, it certainly does look clean and while the pastel aesthetic is maybe a bit too much for his tastes - everything is a pastel shade, from the light yellow on the floor to the pale pink and violet of the chairs and the powder blue of the walls… well, beggars can’t be choosers when it comes to it, and the woman on the chair is chatting amicably with the chestnut-haired girl doing her hair and doesn’t look like she hates being there or like she chose the wrong shop.

Also, it’s two PM and he knows this is going to take long. He can hardly afford to fuck around much longer.

He pushes the door open and walks into the shop.

“Welcome!” The chestnut-haired girl says, giving him a nice smile. “Sorry if I don’t come over, but if you sit for a minute my colleague will be back from her coffee break shortly.”

“Sure,” he says, “no hurry,” and he goes sitting on one of the pale violet chairs on the side - they’re comfortable, at least, and he considers taking out the book he brought with to pass the time, but then -

“Hello and welcome! Can I get you a glass of water” Someone else chirps from his side, and right, he did hear the door open -

Oh.

“Hi,” he blurts, staring into a pair of lovely blue eyes belonging to supposedly the other girl working here - she has long auburn hair styled in a french braid and is wearing a blue summer dress that pairs with her eyes perfectly and she’s smiling down at him as if she’s not horrified by his horrid dye-job, or by his presence in the first place, which is his general experience in this kind of shops, so - that’s good, at least. “And uh, thanks,” he says, realizing he is thirsty.

“Be right back! Sorry, I was taking my break but we have no appointments today, so I’ll be on your case very soon.”

She goes to the corner of the room and grabs a glass of water from a dispenser, then brings it to him - shit, he needed it.

“So, what can I do for you?”

“Er,” he says, “I dyed that hair for a bet but I was called for an internship yesterday, and I start on Monday, so… I need a removal. If it’s possible.”

The girl leans closer, taking a good look at his hair.

“Hm,” she says, “it might take a while, but I think it’s possible. It’s not a very good dye job, if I can say so.”

He snorts. “Oh, you can. Please, I did it and I have regretted it every moment since.”

“Well,” she nods, “you’re lucky that most likely no one will show up for anything complicated today then. Jeyne, can you handle other customers in case?”

“Sure,” the chestnut-haired girl replies. “As if I don’t know you’ll have the time of your life.”

She rolls her eyes, then goes to a wardrobe in the corner and finds him a towel, tucks it around his neck and lowers a chair near the small sinks at the bottom of the shop so he can sit on it - he does, feeling extremely thankful that it’s extremely comfortable leather, and he can hear her tutting about bad dyes under her breath as she washes his hair once, twice, thrice, and her fingers feel really good on his scalp but he’s not going to think about that now.

“Just for the record,” she asks as she rinses it, “do you just want the dye to go away or do you want a cut, too?”

“Hell,” he says, “I need to look presentable. I suppose the cut can’t hurt.”

“Will do,” she chirps again, “and by the way, never use that kind of dye again. Not with hair this nice.”

Tyrion would have toppled off the chair if his head wasn’t thrown too far back for it to happen.

“I have nice hair now?”

“You can feel it,” she replies, “under all this… this,” she says, shaking her head.

“I know,” he says, “bad choices.”

“Extremely,” she goes on, rinsing. “But don’t you worry. I’ll have it fixed.”

“Really,” chestnut-haired girl says, “Sansa is a pro with that kind of thing. You’re in good hands.”

Oh. So her name is Sansa. It’s pretty, he thinks.

“Well,” he says, “I can’t wait to see how you manage it. I’m Tyrion, by the way. Figures you should know if I know yours?”

“Oh, absolutely,” she goes on, and gives his hair a last rinse. “Right, can you move forward?” He does and she dries his hair with the towel, then goes to find a mantel that somehow he doesn’t drown in. “Please,” she says, “on whichever free chair you prefer.”

He picks an empty one two spots away from Jeyne and the other woman and lowers it so he can sit down, and then Sansa raises it up again until his still sadly blue head is at the right height.

“Hm,” she says, grabbing a lock and feeling it between her fingers, “from what I see here you’re a natural blonde?”

“Sort of,” he shrugs. He is - his hair isn’t as golden as his siblings’, but it definitely is on that shade. Not that he ever bothered to look into it. “Wait,” he says, fishing into his pocket, and then he grabs his phone and shows her a picture Bronn took of him and Jaime during Tyrion’s latest birthday party which is about the only one of his he’s kept there where you can see his actual color very well. She takes it, squints, zooms on his head, then nods and hands him back the phone.

“Well,” she says, “we’re going to have to use a color remover to take out the blue pigment, then apply some more pigment to allow for the proteins in the hair to adhere to it. Then… yeah, possibly mix a few different types of toners to reach the goal of your natural hair color, and it’s going to take a while, but we should get there. Nothing that terrible.”

“Er,” he blurts, “how much chemistry did you have to study to get there?”

She smiles a bit wider.

“Yeah, I know, but some people don’t like if we talk like that. It makes it sound complicated, I’m told.”

“Not at all,” he says, waiting as Jeyne, who has finished the other woman’s hair, goes to the back room to presumably get Sansa at least the color remover, “not like it’s not… sort of my thing, too,” he says, and then he bites his own tongue - why did he ever do that, now she’s going to decide he’s a creep or something -

“Really,” she says as Jeyne comes back and hands her the remover, “do lean your head back. And what it is that you do?”

He takes a deep breath and tells her.

—

“Oh, so you’re a mortician?” Sansa says happily as she keeps on applying the remover to his hair, her fingers pressing along his scalp as she rubs it in. To her credit, she doesn’t sound like she thinks it’s creepy.

“Well, apprentice,” he shrugs, “but yeah, working on it. And starting an internship soon. Where I can’t… look like this. But yes. Just going through my degree - I had a final a couple days ago. Fuck, it was so embarrassing.”

“Did they judge your hair?”

“Called it apocalyptic, but I aced it.”

“Nice. What was it about?”

“Embalming, mostly,” he sighs. “All the chemistry about formadelhyde I had to learn.”

“Fun fact,” Sansa grins, “do you know they use it in clothing?”

… He somehow had not known that.

“What? Really? They forgot to cover that part.”

“Well,” Sansa says, “I used to crash fashion school lessons, my brother’s boyfriend snuck me in. I learned a lot. I think it’s because of the preserving qualities, though I’m sure it wasn’t… all of it.”

“I mean,” Tyrion blurts, “it’s a preservative but it’s also a disinfectant. Destroys bacteria and their food supply, and it’s a dehydrator, there’s a reason why we use it that much.”

“Hm,” Sansa nods, starting to put aluminium stripes on his hair - fuck, he looks ridiculous like this, “one wonders why you don’t just use alcohol then? Because I thought it was kind of carcinogen.”

Well, she did listen to those lessons for sure.

“It’s cheaper,” Tyrion sighs, “a lot cheaper. It cuts costs. Guess I’ll resign myself to the cancer risk.”

She snorts. “Please,” she says, keeping on placing those stripes carefully, “I’m pretty sure that’s exaggerating a bit. There, they should rest for half an hour. I have to place a few calls now but if you want to read while I’m at it feel free to, just don’t move your head around too much.”

“Roger that,” Tyrion nods, and settles back in the chair.

He has a feeling it’s going to be long, but at least she’s very good company. Jeyne looks about to say something but then another woman comes in the shop and she goes to greet her, and Tyrion goes back to his Chinese sci-fi book that he’s really enjoying and hopes that at the end of it he doesn’t have to shave his head because that dye was that bad.

—

Half an hour later, after washing away the remover, Sansa has moved on to applying the first round of pigment to his hair - the blue did go out, but it still looks…. well. Bad. He can see it just looking at it in the mirror.

“So, she says, “is your internship at a funeral home?”

“Yes,” he replies, “it’s during the last six months of the degree, then you write your thesis and you get your license, and honestly, it’s a nice funeral home. I hope they hire me for good. Anyway, it makes sense. We need to have… experiences with, uh, cases, you know, uh -“

“You can say bodies,” Sansa grins brightly, “it’s fine. I know what you do in funeral homes.”

“Oh, thank God,” he blurts. “I’m sorry, uh, people tend to get queasy when I mention them. The bodies, I mean.”

“That sounds nonsensical,” Sansa shrugs, “what do people think happens when they die? Anyway, you can absolutely say that. Hm, here we go, I think these can stay. Another… yeah. Half-hour, forty-five minutes? Get yourself comfortable. I’ll go mix those toners meanwhile.”

Oh. Right. The toners. Fuck, he can’t wait for this entire dye business to be over. Honestly, he hasn’t done that when he was fifteen, he should have stuck with it.

He grabs his book back and starts reading it again, except that he finds himself wishing he could chat with Sansa some more and he needs to get that thought out of his head right now, no reason to set himself up for failure.

He reads on.

—

Later, she’s washed his hair again and she’s still mixing the toners.

“Yeah,” she says, “I think this need a bit more work, but I’m curious. Is there anything you don’t like about your school? Because you sounded really excited before.”

Did I, Tyrion thinks, but then again… he almost never talks about it to anyone except Jaime or Bronn because everyone else thinks it’s morbid, and somehow this girl who owns a wholly pastel shop actually seems to enjoy discussing the topic, so why the hell not?

“I mean,” he says, “I think we should do autopsies.”

“Oh, you don’t? I’d have expected it.”

“Eh,” he shrugs, “me too, and I think we should for, you know, completion and so on, but we don’t, so I guess I’ll read up on it.”

“But,” she says, “hypothetically,” and she’s kind of smiling slyly, what, “let’s say that someone wakes up while embalming them. What do you do then?”

“I mean,” Tyrion replies, slowly, “I think there’s a pretty huge difference between a living body and a dead one?”

“Sansa, please,” Jeyne says as she combs through the hair of the other woman, who looks… a tiny bit disturbed, but neither Jeyne nor Sansa are, so… who cares. right?, “never mind that you need a bit more toner, but I think there’s a thing named rigor mortis that’d make it pretty fucking obvious.”

“That,” Tyrion replies, “also if one gets stuck in a fridge for a few days I think you’d be dead anyway. Not to be, you know, morbid.”

Sansa mixes a bit more toner and smiles wider. Right. She was so fucking with him. “I mean, you did pump them full of carcinogen just before, right?”

“Right,” he laughs as she tells him to lean back and starts applying the toner to his poor roots, “we did, technically.”

“Just stay still,” she goes on, “it’ll be another hour, I think. Then I can cut.”

Well, he decides, at least this entire process is being not overtly miserable.

He leans back and lets her apply the toner and then cover it with the aluminium stripes all over again.

—

“So,” she says later while Jeyne is going through the third client of the day and he’s sitting on the chair again after his hair was thoroughly rinsed and washed for the umpteenth time — he lost count, honestly, but now it does look like his usual shade, sort of, he thinks, “can I ask what was this infamous bet about? Also, I can see your hair is naturally wavy — should I just trim the edges? Because I can see you cut it yourself and it’s not bad but you kind of hacked at them.”

“Er, yes,” he says, “sounds good. Wait, naturally wavy?”

“It is,” she says, “I can recognize it.”

“I, uh,” he coughs, “I don’t think I ever had it long enough to notice?”

“It’s the exact same as your brother’s,” she shrugs, “just a bit darker, but again, this should tide you over for a while. I mean, by the time it wears off whatever travesty you did to your hair in the first place should be fixed and it’ll be as before and no one will notice.”

“Then - I guess you can trim only and I’ll see,” he says, his throat suddenly feeling dry. No one ever compared him to Jaime in that sense without making it… well. About how he’s not the person with the good looks in the family, so this entire thing is just - weird. “Anyway, uh, you can ask about the bet. I mean, it’s just embarrassing.”

“I’m listening,” she says, cutting the edges of his hair slowly, and surely she puts a lot more thought it in than he does while cutting it, but then again… it’s her job and he learned because he didn’t want his father’s barber to go near his head.

“Er, so,” he clears his throat again, trying to figure out how to tell her the sanitized version of it while sparing her from all the family ugliness, “I was out drinking with the brother and the best friend at the same bar we’ve been going to for months because they have good drinks and the brother absolutely had a crush on the bartender, except that he came from a, uh, toxic relationship, let’s put it like that, and I thought he wasn’t going to fess up ever, so - we were drunk and it came out and I said of course I’d dye my hair that horrid color if he fessed up to her and like, I thought he never would but he actually went and did it and — yeah. I mean, glad for him that it went well but not my greatest moment.”

“Aw,” Sansa replies, keeping on trimming, “I like a nice love story. I imagine he doesn’t share our interest in formadelhyde.”

Why does his heart beat a tiny bit faster when she says our interest?

“No,” Tyrion shakes his head, “he’s more into nerding over Middle Ages weapons, but at least he didn’t tell me Six Feet Under was boring, so.”

“I loved that show,” she replies, “who’d say it’s boring?”

“It’s my favorite,” he shrugs a bit as she puts away the scissors. “And a lot of people, but it seems like you have good taste.”

She nods as she grabs some lotion that she supposedly has to pass into his hair before drying it. “And what about you?”

“Sorry?”

“Well, he had a nice love story going into port, so what about you?”

“Er,” he hopes he’s not blushing, fuck, he’s usually not — he doesn’t fluster, fucking hell, “I — really am not looking. My family kind of… fucked up the only serious relationship I had going for me and most people get put off at the whole I want to be a mortician thing, so.”

“What kind of family fucks up relationships for other people?”

“The kind we come from,” he sighs, “but at least he’s out of that circus and I’ll be the moment I graduate.”

“Nice,” Sansa nods, “now just hold on a moment and I’m drying it.”

He nods — she grabs an hair dryer and starts blowing it and yes, he can see she got the exact shade right now that it’s not wet anymore, and — well, of course it’s her job to make it look good but the more she proceeds the nicer it looks, and now he can vaguely see what she meant when she talked about natural curls, and also… it feels fluffier? Lighter? He has no fucking clue, but the moment she’s finished — well.

“Fuck,” he admits, “I don’t think my hair ever looked this nice in my entire life.”

She grins. “I know how to do my job. Another moment.” She sprays some more lotion on her hands and runs it through his hair again. “This was just for a bit of nutriment, but there you are. You know, if you treat it a bit more nicely you might not need it me to make it look good.”

“Yeah, well, and what if I’d like to come back here instead?” He blurts, not knowing what the fuck he’s aiming for, but then she grins back a bit wider.

“I always like making new clients,” she replies, “especially when they’re cute and they don’t only want to talk about the gossip in magazines. That gets boring after a while.”

Wait, did she call him cute?

“Tell you what,” she keeps on as she takes the mantel off him and waits for him to get off the chair and follow her to the counter, “let’s say I don’t give all new clients a ten percent discount but I do give it to the ones I like.”

What the fuck —

“So, here you go.”

She hands him a receipt… with a fifteen per cent discount. “But you have to promise me you won’t use that crap dye anymore. That’s probably more cancer-inducing than formaldehyde could ever be.”

He has to laugh at that.

“Fair,” he says, “I won’t. Maybe I’ll come back before my last final. It’s two weeks from now,” he says, slowly, “I might want to look good for it. As much as it goes, anyway.”

“Oh, I’ll make you look incredible, don’t you worry.” She takes his card, swipes it, hands him the POS. He’s sure he doesn’t let it drop just out of sheer force of will. The payment goes through, she gives him his receipt and he pockets it, his hand still sweating —

“I’ll see you to the door,” she goes on, and she follows him out.

“So, Tyrion,” she grins again, “see you in two weeks?”

“Oh,” he replies, “absolutely.”

“And let me know how the internship thing works out. I like to know what’s up with the clients I like,” she winks, and then she leans down and kisses his cheek before going back into the shop.

Tyrion just stands there dumbfounded and only takes a few steps from the shop, and he didn’t mean to eavesdrop but he hears Jeyne the moment he starts walking away and —

“Sansa, I know you said you’d be forward after that asshole Harry, but I never saw you being that obvious. You really liked our mortician or what?”

“So what?” Sansa replies, and Tyrion thinks he’ll faint. “No point in playing hard to get and all. When he comes back I’m absolutely asking him out for coffee or something. I did like him.”

“Good for you,” Jeyne replies, “he seems nice and you deserve a nice guy. Even if that dye was a really crap choice on his part.”

“Oh, if I have a say in it no bad dye is ever coming near that hair. It was so nice,” she replies, and at that point he leaves because he really shouldn’t be doing this and he will faint, but —

But he smiles to himself all the way home.

He thinks he’s never looked forward to a final that much, and if she does really ask him out for coffee, no way he’s being an idiot and saying no.

And if he’ll brush up on cool embalming facts before then, well, you can’t blame him, right?

End.

[revasserium]

hinata + 26

haikyuu requests currently: closed 

although, if you have a hinata-request. send it in bc. chances are i’ll write it because i am #biased 

26. the length of daylighthinata ; 2,651 words 

a/n: i know i never post authors notes usually, but wow uh – i really liked writing this? and i think this might be one of the best things I’ve written on this blog to date. idk man. i just. really really liked this. u__u pls give hinata some love he deserves the world. 

five hundred, twenty-five thousand, six hundred minutes – you hadn’t seen him in so long. it’d been three years – three times five hundred, twenty-five thousand, six hundred minutes – that’s way too many minutes, and yet here he is, standing on your doorstep with a smile that you’d be crazy not to remember. 

you stare at him, and wonder where to even begin – he’s taller, that’s for sure, and tanner, so much tanner – well obviously, brazil is a sunny place. 

“hey.” 

you open your mouth to speak, but no words come out. instead, you just stand and gape at him like he’d somehow stolen your voice from your chest (like ursula the sea-witch, and you don’t know how, after so long, he still seems to hold this kind of magic over you – can you call it a curse if you’ve missed it? the way it shifts the very fabric of your reality until you’re living in his). 

he scuffs his feet against the welcome mat and you can breathe again; he glances down at his shoes, scratching at the back of his head. 

“you’re… taller.” 

he laughs. the self-same open, melodious, uproarious thing you remember from three years before; he still laughs with his entire body, lets it shake him from core to shoulders, his eyes squinting shut. when he calms down enough to look back at you, there’s a pleased flush high in his cheeks. 

“yeah, guess so.” 

when you step aside to let him in, he grins wide enough to split his face, leaping over the half-step into your apartment, immediately crowding into your space till you’re pressed almost chest to chest. 

“oh-ho~!” he holds a hand up from the top of his head and moves it slowly over yours, “you’re right! i did get taller! maybe i even grew a little since i got back!” 

you lick your lips and try to swallow your heart back down your throat from where it’s beating against your voicebox. close, close, way too close. 

he smells nice, you realize – no, remember. but it’s different than before. he no longer smells of citrus shampoo and the slight dampness of sweat; now he smells vaguely of salt and suntan lotion. you allow yourself a grin as you look up, your eyes searching his face for the traces of him you still remember, are trying to hold onto. they’re still there – the light his eyes, the ease of his smile. 

freckles… that wasn’t there before. 

you stand there for a moment, chests almost pressed in your doorway, him now tall enough to tower (just a bit) over you, before he realizes and jumps back, almost stumbling over his own feet as his back meets the opposite wall, stuttering out something like an apology. 

at least that hasn’t changed. 

“s-sorry! i didn’t mean to – i mean – was that too close – it totally was – i just got so excited to see you again – it was like – mmm – that woooshhh feeling in my chest like – you know? i won’t do it again! i mean – not unless you want me to –” 

“shouyou.” 

he cuts clean off at the sound of his name on your lips. it’s different too, than what he remembers. he swallows, unsure of what’ll happen next. but you smile, leaning towards him (he notices that your hair is longer, way longer than when he left – right, three years is a really long time – he likes it longer; he wonders if it still smells just as nice as it did before; it probably does) with a spark in your eyes and he knows he’s gone. 

three years across the world, and you’d think it would’ve stamped out this childish crush of his, one that he has no idea you harbored for him as well (your friends all wonder when on earth the pair of you will realize). it hasn’t. if anything, distance really does make the heart grow fonder, and shit – you’re saying something and all he can focus on is the way your lips still look way too soft – and is that lipgloss you’re wearing? you didn’t used to do that before. 

“… not listening, are you?” 

“huh? ah – i – uh – no… sorry i zoned out –” 

he flashes you a sheepish grin, scratching at the back of his head as he pushes himself back up from where he’d fallen against the wall. you huff and flicking a strand of hair over your shoulder. 

“i asked if you wanted coffee or anything. i was about to make some anyway.” 

“sure! yeah! i love coffee – that sounds – that sounds great!” 

he follows you into the living room, looking around at all the things that had changed, but noticing all the things that stayed the same. you still had your graduation picture hung up, right next to the picture of the team. you had short hair then – he liked short hair on you too. hell, he figures, letting his eyes wander across the walls of your living room, he’d probably still like you bald. the thought almost makes him laugh; he shakes his head. nah, he likes you better with hair for sure. 

“milk? sugar?” 

“hm? yeah – uh – whatever you think is good.” 

you quirk an eyebrow and he realizes belatedly that he must’ve said something wrong. 

“uh… milk… and sugar, both – please!” he grins, settling into a chair at the table, “thank you!” 

so you make coffee, he tells you about brazil, about the stretches of beaches that never seem to end, about the skies so blue it hurts to look too hard, about the way there’s always something that smells delicious in the air, always chatter and music in the streets. you tell him about how you’ve been, how college is great because you could finally drop math classes, but how it’s also kind of a nightmare because morning lectures are the freaking worst. 

you tell him about the upperclassman who really liked you, and kept on asking you out till he graduated. 

“i never said yes, though,” you say, nursing your cooling coffee mug. 

hinata quirks his head, “why not? wasn’t he –” he waves a hand through the air, before saying rather dumbly, “nice?” 

you smile, “yeah, he was nice. but… he wasn’t really my type.” 

hinata licks his lips, “you… have a type now?” 

you roll your eyes, “i’ve always had a type.” and you don’t have to look up to hear the pout in his voice. 

“i never knew about it.” 

you toss a bit of crumpled napkin at him across the table, “you never asked.” 

“oh.” and then after a second, “so… what is your type?” 

you hum, tapping your lips in mock contemplation. a single glance tells you that he’s watching you, and the realization shouldn’t make your stomach twist the way it does, but – it does. he’s watching you with those eyes of his, almost completely devoid of light, like tiny black holes, depthless, with enough gravity to swallow the entire world whole – to swallow you whole. 

“someone tall,” he visibly deflates, “but not too tall,” you continue, and he brightens up again, almost immediately. you grin, leaning back in your chair, your eyes flickering over him, “someone who’s really good at one thing –” you cast about, “like an instrument,” he crinkles his nose to disguise a huff, “or a sport,” he grins to himself, nodding as if checking off mental boxes, you wonder how long you can drag this out for before he realizes you’re not talking so much about a type of person so much as one single person. 

“they should be really driven, and passionate about what they do, y’know?” you watch as he nods enthusiastically, hanging onto your every word. you grin. 

“and… hm, i like guys who speak more than one language. that’s a nice skill.” 

“yeah! uh-huh!” 

“and… hm… someone who’s good at making friends, that’s important too.” 

you watch as hintata considers this, mumbling to himself – i guess i’m not bad at that – i make friends alright – yeah. 

you prop your chin on the heel of your hand. 

“someone who plays volleyball,” you say, wondering if it’s about time to start giving proper hints. 

“uwah! yeah! cause i mean – you like volleyball, so it’d be nice, right?” 

you laugh, nodding along, “yeah – and y’know, and i kinda have a thing for gingers.” 

“yeah, yeah! it’s a nice hair colo –” he stops dead in his tracks as realization dawns over his face and his pleased smile morphs into an expression of sheer disbelief. 

you heave a loud sigh, pushing yourself up from the table, “yeah, if only a guy like that existed.” 

hintata opens his mouth, shooting to his feet, but even as he opens his mouth to say i do! i’m right here! another realization blooms in his chest. 

i’ve always had a type. 

oh. oh. 

he blinks at you from across the table, his own prolonged ignorance finally cracking over his shoulders – all those years – all of highschool. all these years too. 

“shit.” 

he collapses back into the chair, a helpless laugh on his lips as he cards a hand through his hair, mussing it up as he stares into the dregs of his now-cold coffee. 

“did you want another cup?” you ask casually from the sink, where you're rinsing out your own mug. once upon a time, you might’ve been angry, or upset, or any manner of things. but you’d realized somewhere along the way that loving hinata shouyou was never going to be a linear thing. and maybe it’ll take him a while to realize, but being best friends with him has taught you more than anything all the ways he says i love you – and it was a bit easier after that. 

“i – crap,” he chews on his lips, fumbling for words to say. 

you smile, “bathrooms down the hall to the right still. that hasn’t changed.” 

you turn just in time to see him flush to the roots of his hair, “that’s not what i meant.” 

“then…?” you lean back against the counter, watching as he struggles with his own tangle of emotions till he looks up again, his face a mask of determination. 

“go out with me.” 

you raise your eyebrows, a small smile playing at your lips, “sure, to where?” 

hinata groans, shaking his head, “i mean like – not outside – out like – like –” his cheeks are almost red enough to match his hair, “like – out!” 

you laugh, your entire body shaking with the sound, and it’s this more than anything that seems to ground hinata enough for him to stop stuttering. 

“properly – i mean. be – be my girlfriend.” 

you nod, biting down the swell of elation cresting in your chest, “okay.” 

“oh – okay?” he blinks. 

“yeah,” you say, “okay.” 

“oh – okay! yay! ah – this is great! waaaahhhh!” he leaps out of the chair, both hands raised over his head. it takes him all of three seconds to bound across the living room to the sink, both his hands raised as if asking for a high-ten. you laugh, raising your own hands. 

how entirely hinata-like – to high-five someone after asking them out. 

he claps his hands against yours, laughing, but his laughter fades as you don’t pull away, instead slipping your fingers between his. his eyes widen at the sensation of your pressed palms, and he almost hiccups at how his entire body shivers. 

and suddenly, he’s tugging you towards him, as if on raw instinct, as if all he wants is to be closer, just a bit closer, and you find yourself stumbling into his chest, gasping but never doubting that he’d catch you. so he does, his hands finding purchase around your waist, your hands against his chest – so solid from years and years of relentless workouts and practice. 

“uh – uhm – i uh –” he swallows, glancing from your eyes to your mouth, his mind seemingly short-circuiting somewhere between the two. 

“shouyou,” you say, leaning up onto your tip-toes (you remember when the pair of you used to be only two inches apart). 

he nods once. 

“kiss me.” 

he nods again, before leaning in, and the first kiss a little strange – the both of you still not quite sure of where your own lips are supposed to go, what the whole situation with the teeth is supposed to be like (credit where credit is due, both of you have watched enough romance – and the occasional porno – to know how it’s supposed to look but given everything that’s happened, practical application is still a bit rusty). the second kiss is better, and you can feel hinata’s confidence surge when he presses in closer, tilting his head to slot your lips better, the friction between you making you gasp. 

the third kiss, he’s already caught onto the rhythm. 

the fourth, you wonder if it’s quite fair for someone to be such a fast learner, your fingers fisting in the front of his shirt, all awkward, fumbling newness gone from his movements as he pushes you back against the counter, his hands coming up to cup your cheeks, thumb running along your jaw to tilt your head the way he likes. 

the fifth, you stop counting. you don’t have the capacity to anymore. 

after what feels like an eternity of kissing (and who knows, it might’ve been – maybe outside, years have already passed by, or maybe it was just a few, breath-stealing seconds), he pulls back, the both of you panting, eyes a little glazed over, lips slick and kiss-swollen. 

he grins, a wide, satisfied kind of thing, and you can almost imagine him purring in his chest. 

“hey.” 

you laugh, quirking your head as you watch him preen under this new truth – the two of you being together – finally, finally. 

“you really have gotten taller.” 

you push up to give him another peck. he whines in the back of his throat, leaning down to try and follow your lips but you twist your head so his mouth lands somewhere on your cheek, and he decides that that’s alright too. he gives you a loud, smacking kiss, grinning into your skin. 

you glance at the clock. 

“well. now that we’re going out-out. properly,” you tease, “do you wanna order in takeout for dinner?” 

hinata laughs, the sound perfect and warm, rumbling through his chest, resonating into yours. 

“yeah – you know i worked as a delivery boy in brazil?” 

you nod, “yeah, i remember – you texted me pictures of your bike, remember?” 

“oh! oh yeah,” he grins cheekily as you try to wriggle out of his grasp to reach your phone. he holds on tighter. you sigh, reaching into his back pocket for his phone and swiping it open only to find a picture of yourself smiling back at you from his lockscreen. 

“hey!” 

he tries to grab the phone from you, but you duck out of his grasp. 

“i’m just trying to seamless!” you laugh, dancing out of his reach as he tries half-heartedly to retrieve his phone. when finally, the both of you are laughing and collapsed on the couch, he hooks his chin over your shoulder. 

“next time, i’ll take you on a real date.” 

you smile, “sure. we can go to one of those fancy restaurants.” 

“uh-huh,” he nods, determined to meet your expectations. 

“and we can order all the most expensive things on the menu,” you tease, grinning wide. 

hinata sucks in a breath and you can almost feel him steeling himself not to deny you. 

“yeah – that’s fine – well, maybe we should look up the menu first, so we can see what we like.” 

you nod, “sounds like a plan.” 

“it’s a date.” 

you smile, letting your head fall back onto his shoulder. 

“yep, it sure will be.”