Love's Green Thumb

25. And Then What?

Song: Somewhere Only We Know- Keane

It took all of Tobio's courage to ask, "And then what happened?"

Hinata hadn't looked at him the whole time-- he'd stared at the blank space of wall like he wanted to tear away the paint and the plaster and hide inside the frame.

There wasn't an answer for a long time.

"'Then?'" Without realizing it, Hinata picked at the exposed skin on his hand. "I don't know. My memory to-- From what... happened after that..."

It seemed like the boy wanted to cry so badly. Maybe he didn't have tears left. Maybe he was trying to hold back in front of Tobio. Maybe he was still too angry.

"No!" Kageyama burned bright red, trying to clarify, "You don't have to force yourself to remember! I mean... If you don't want to..." He mentally banged his head against the wall. "Fuck, I'm so-- sorry..." The words on his tongue were stiff and unwelcoming. It was no wonder that Hinata had begun shrinking in on himself, with his legs bunched up against his chest and his forehead on his knees.

A minute. Then, two. Until finally, Kageyama, with the cautiousness of a rabbit hunting for carrots in an angry gardener's field, lifted his hand to Hinata's back. The boy stiffened under his fingers but didn't draw away. He heard him sniffle.

"It's not your fault, you know." Tobio whispered the words with soft, but forceful, conviction.

Shouyou didn't respond. With his back to Kageyama, he bit down hard on his lip.

"Yes, it is."

And finally, after so long, after a year of holding back the emotion inside him, Hinata Shouyou cried.

He cried, and cried, and cried, big fat tears cascading down his cheeks like a waterfall, and he didn't try to stop them. They tasted salty on his lips.

This was it. This was the moment that Hinata had been holding back from-- from truly crying over his sister's death. Because it made it real. It meant that Natsu really wasn't coming back.

"Natsu." As he cried, he shook, and as he shook, he called her name with a tearing heart.

She was gone.

She was really gone.

How had it come to this? How had he never realized how much she was hurting? Why was his sister gone? Why was he the one allowed to live while his sister was dead?

And suddenly, a soft pair of arms were wrapped around Hinata, blocking out the room, blocking out his shaking body.

They were warm. They were comforting. They were understanding. They felt like a promise. They ached with care.

"It's not your fault."

With Tobio's soft, persistent words, Hinata wondered, actually wondered, for the first time, if that was the truth.

Kageyama held him tighter. And as he held the shaking, crying boy in his arms, he whispered the words over and over in the hopes that they'd get through to him so Hinata could see himself how everyone else did:

Not as the boy with the dead sister, or as someone they needed to pity.

Hinata was their friend.

He wasn't some cookie-cutter, one-answer being; His eyes weren't brown, they were coco; His hair wasn't orange and fluffy, it was a truffula tree; His body wasn't small, it was powerful; His past wasn't something to be ashamed of, it would make him stronger; His friends didn't just like him, they loved him. He wasn't just a boy. God, he was so much more.

And if ever there was a time he needed his friends, be it now or ever, the gardening club's doors would always be open, and it would always be his home.

A/n: do u guys actually listen to the songs I use for these chapters or no

And also........ Did you guys pretty much guess as to what Hinata's past was or did you only figure it out when I posted that last chapter? Because I dropped hints but I wasn't sure if I gave too much away.....