Love's Green Thumb

22. The Thing He Shouldn't Do

Song: I Found- Amber Run

"You're mad."

Kageyama was currently standing as far away from Shouyou as possible- afraid that the boy's menace would be targeted toward him next.

Hinata laughed bitterly and stared at the ceiling. Didn't say anything.

If Tobio hadn't known better, he'd never have believed that the boy in front of him had been so radiant the first time they'd met. No longer was he the sun in Kageyama's eyes. Now... Shouyou was a dying flame. Small, weak, this close to extinction.

"...Are you mad at me, too?"

Hinata's bloodshot eyes flickered over to him. "What for?" His voice contained absolutely no emotion.

"I, uh... I don't know. But are you?"

The room was silent.

"Do you want to, uh, talk about it?" Kageyama was terrible with emotional moments. His high school team had always made fun of him for it, especially when they were celebrating a big win. He tried to blink away the bad memories. Wrong place, wrong time.

"Why?" Hinata rolled over so that he was no longer facing Tobio.

"Maybe it'll feel better to get it off your chest."

A hitch in breathing. Clenched fists. "I shouldn't... I shouldn't be here."

Tobio huffed angrily. After he'd gone to the trouble of carrying Shouyou to his dorm, he at least deserved some sort of thank you.

But this wasn't the time for thoughts like that.

"Talk to me, then... You're not leaving until you do." He barricaded the exit- not that Hinata made any motion to gesture that he was going to try and leave. He was small, motionless on the mattress.

Defeated.

"What's left to know?"

Hinata's answer surprised Kageyama. Was he actually going to open up? And yet he sounded so broken, so absolutely and utterly destroyed.

"I killed her. Are you happy?" Hinata's eyes burned. He buried his face into the sheets, gripped them tightly like he was afraid that if he let go, he'd float away. Afraid of the truth. Afraid of himself. Of his past.

Tobio's eyes opened wide. "That's...not true, Hinata..." He didn't sound convincing at all, even to himself.

"Yes it is!" Hinata screeched into the pillow. Tears bubbled from his eyes and soaked into the cloth. He didn't care that he was breaking down in front of Tobio- he'd down it once already, anyway. "I killed Natsu, and it's my fault, and she'd dead, and it's all my fault!"

When he finished, his voice felt like sandpaper.

Images of Natsu flashed in his head. Happy, sad, nervous, stressed, worry free, jealous, angry, hungry, full. Different expressions. How she talked with her hands. The little double ponytails she'd worn when she was younger. Her face on his laptop screen, glitchy and slow before his match. He hadn't even been able to tell how much she'd hurt.

Their last goodbye, spoken quickly as Hinata's teammates hurried him to end the call so they could practice.

"It's all my fault..." He wrapped his arms around himself and rocked back and forth.

Kageyama cautiously sat down next to Shouyou. He never knew what to say, still didn't, but he tried his best anyway. "I'm here. Talk to me. Whatever you need... Tell me."

Shouyou's tearfilled eyes widened in shock. He remembered that Tobio was there next to him, drawing him back to reality.

And suddenly, he let everything out. He collapsed his weak body into Kageyama's unsuspecting arms, cherishing the warmth they gave him, and sobbed into the boy's jacket. He smelled like lemon and mint.

Tobio awkwardly started up; he hadn't expected the boy to burst at him so suddenly. But he calmed down and slowly wrapped his arms around Hinata, let him to cry into his jacket. He put a hand in Shouyou's hair. Running it through the silky curls, he mumbled words of nothingness and comfort to the small boy.

They stayed like that for five minutes, maybe more, maybe less. It could have been five seconds or five years for all Tobio knew.

Hinata's sobs began as gasping, shaking fits that sent tremors through his body, but when Hinata's sniffles began to die down, he still didn't take his shaking body away from Kageyama's. He was warm and big and tall and comfortable and welcome. He felt a little more like home than the emotionless dorms.

"I'm sorry." He mumbled into the jacket, not wanting to look up to face those big ocean eyes that could never hide a thing. He preferred the way things were now.

But Tobio didn't allow him that privilege.

He tilted Shouyou's head up to face him, took everything in: his puffy eyes filled with tears, brown with flecks of gold that reminded him of constellations, his red button nose, sore from crying, his trembling lips parted ever so slightly. What thoughts were hidden behind those lips?

He tried to imagine a life without having met Shouyou-- couldn't.

And suddenly, Kageyama Tobio took every hurt, every pain, every jealousy, every anger, every disappointment, every bad day away as his lips joined Hinata's.