Chapter Text
The first time Hinata ever hears it is at summer training camp their first year of high school.
He and Kageyama have been reprimanded for fighting (again), and they're made to stay late and help with the clean up post dinner (again), which takes an absurdly long time given the amount of rampaging teens the cafeteria was just forced to endure. Even helping the cleaning staff, they aren't done for nearly an hour, which means everyone else has already taken their baths and started to filter off to bed.
Hinata and Kageyama get the leftover bathwater. Kageyama blames Hinata bitterly for this—but it was just as much his fault as it was Hinata's, because if he hadn't kept calling Hinata a dumbass, Hinata wouldn't have snapped and called him a lukewarm meatbun, "if all the meat in the bun was replaced with poo instead", which had resulted in Kageyama trying to put him in an armbar in the middle of their flying falls penalty. Sawamura had not been amused.
And so, an hour after everyone else has showered and gone on their way, Hinata and Kageyama make their way down the hall to the baths. They arrive outside the door, jostling for positioning, both trying to get through the door at once, before they suddenly pop through it like a cork from a bottle. Hinata almost loses his footing on the slippery tile. Kageyama grabs his arm before he smashes his chin into the floor.
"Dumbass," he says, for the millionth time that day.
By the time they make it into the water, they are exhausted again, worn out from another attempt at wrestling that only stops when Kageyama's towel starts to fall off and Hinata pushes him away while yelling about pervert setters. Kageyama glares at him but doesn't respond, and the fight is put on standstill as Hinata shucks off his towel and clambers into the bath with maximum splashing.
He wades to the far side of the bath when Kageyama enters, purposefully ignoring him, under the guise of irritation.
The argument has provided him with a fortunate motive.
His breathing is a bit quick and his face red because they were shouting and fighting, not because he's embarrassed, or feeling awkward, or a little too excited, at being alone with Kageyama in the baths.
He's ignoring Kageyama, avoiding eye contact, because Kageyama deserves it after being rude and mean, not because Hinata can barely stand to look at him as he unwinds the towel from his waist and climbs in, the water settling over his long legs and broad shoulders.
He's not talking because he's pouting, not because he's not sure he can make any sounds that won't be totally humiliating, having found himself alone and naked with the same person causing him to suffer the biggest and stupidest crush he's ever experienced in his entire life.
The water has cooled considerably at that point, and the bath is not at all the comforting reprieve it would usually be, but they still sit in silence for what feels like far too long.
"Hey," Kageyama eventually grunts.
Hinata grunts back.
"Earlier, when we lost the game to Nekoma—"
Hinata exhales a sigh that is a bit more like a low scream, because he knows what's coming. Kageyama perseveres through gritted teeth.
"—you did—alright. You did some alright things."
Very slowly, Hinata rotates his body in the water to look at him. Kageyama's expression is one of great pain.
"You really sucked at a bunch of stuff," he continues.
Hinata turns his back on him.
"But," Kageyama says quickly, "there were things that weren't completely terrible." Upon receiving no response, he sighs heavily, and says, "You had some good spikes."
"Oh my gosh," Hinata says, spinning around again to glare. "Would you just say sorry already?"
"Get out," Kageyama snarls, and Hinata springs up and out of the bath.
Maybe, though… maybe Kageyama gets it. That Hinata knowing he's trying to say sorry is (almost) apology enough. That Hinata understands he's trying.
Maybe simply knowing that Hinata understands him makes him do what he does next.
Hinata takes a little while to dry off and get dressed, but he's decided to wait for Kageyama. Kageyama obviously isn't expecting this, and after some moments have passed, Hinata hears it.
The sound is low at first, low enough that Hinata doesn't register much other than the low buzz of the lights and the ripples of the water. But then it gets louder and he perks his head up.
It's a low, deep sound, soft and melodic and a little laced with the tired weariness that comes at the end of a long day. But it's a pleasant sound, a happy sound, a murmur that bubbles out of the body when it's relaxed and glad, never anything else. Hinata freezes by the door, hand still reaching for it.
Kageyama is singing.
Maybe humming is a more appropriate word. There aren't words, to whatever song it is, or if there are, then Hinata's never heard the tune and wouldn't know them. The little, low murmur bounces off the tile, echoing in the space, washing over him and making him feel warm and soft all over, they way the cooling bath water had utterly failed to do.
He has a nice voice, Hinata realizes. Kageyama has a nice voice, and who would have ever believed that?
It's not that it's breathtaking, or show stopping, or operatic or professional. It probably wouldn't make most people sit up and take notice, except in the quietest of moments, alone in the dark of a shared space. But that doesn't stop it from being nice, doesn't stop it from making Hinata want to smile and listen, because that's Kageyama, happily humming to himself in the bath in little low furrows and rising, staccato bumps.
The song trails off as quietly as it started, not a real ending but a pause, a breath the boy in the bath takes at one point, never really picking it back up again, aside from a stray mumbling tone here or there. That's it, that's the song. Not really a song, but… something. A little stray thought.
The sounds of water sloshing bring Hinata out of his contemplative daze. He finishes reaching, opening the door in front of him, before slipping out of the baths, padding back to his room, with Kageyama none the wiser that anyone had been listening.
He would be embarrassed, Hinata is sure, and he doesn't want that. He can't help but think that Kageyama's wordless song had been, at least a little bit, caused by him. Maybe it hadn't but—he understands Kageyama better than anyone else, doesn't he?
It feels okay that he'd overheard, but what if Kageyama had wanted to keep it to himself, the same way Hinata keeps his feelings about Kageyama bottled up inside himself?
He isn't ready, to talk about that yet. And maybe Kageyama wouldn't want to talk about his song, in the same sort of way.
Still, Hinata had heard it. That night, he plays it over in his head, as he falls asleep. A sweet song, nothing really all that special, and yet all the more so because of it. A casual afterthought from the last person you'd ever expect.