Hinata blinks at him. “Oh, no,” he says, “I didn’t mean it like that! Nothing to be sorry for, I—” he swallows down the just miss you and settles on, “—know you’re busy.”Kenma shrugs and hands him the towel, then looks him up and down. “You’re soaked.”Hinata grins at him, embarrassed. “Yeah,” he says, “um.”Wordless, Kenma crosses to a heap of his laundry and picks out a pair of pajama pants and a t-shirt. He tosses them at Hinata, who catches them easily. “Thanks,” he says, and ducks into the bathroom to dry off and change.When he comes back Kenma’s also in pajamas, lying on his back with his legs off the bed and his feet on the floor, his phone above him in his hands. “You missed the last bus,” he says to it, deadpan, and sits up to look at Hinata. “Stay.”Hinata shifts, feeling strange and too-warm in Kenma’s clothes. “Are you sure? You’ve only got one bed.”Kenma nods, though he’s eyeing the floor with distaste, and Hinata rolls his shoulders. “Okay,” he says, secretly pleased to have a chance to spend more time here. “We’ll just share, then.”Kenma looks at him, startled, but finally nods. They’ve shared beds before, back in high school, but they’re both taller, now—built outward, their edges more solid. You’re supposed to have more solid edges, when you’re an adult. You’re not supposed to fit together so easy.
Kenma pushes himself back on his bed ‘til he’s sitting against the wall, staring to one side, out the window. The rain drums on it, a counterpoint to the intermittent thunder trapped in the clouds rolling across town.He seems tense—now that Kenma’s not watching him, Hinata lets himself look, lets his gaze linger. There’s a tiredness to Kenma’s eyes. He’s never bursting with energy, but one of the things that drew Hinata to him in the first place, all those years ago, was his capacity for quiet, almost invisible excitement—excitement that was tangible, instead, hanging in the air around him, being breathed into everyone’s lungs. It was what had made him so electric on the court—he was the center of his team; Kuroo had more than once called him the heart but it was more like the heartbeat, pushing them all upward to greater heights of skill and effort. It’s what’s missing now—the boy sitting on the bed is withdrawn where he is usually just quiet; pulled inward where he is usually just not outward.Hinata keeps his steps quiet as he comes to sit on the bed. “Kenma,” he says, “are you okay?”Kenma tilts gently over onto his side and Hinata copies him, caught in his motion and wanting to be on his level, make him most comfortable. It means they’re lying face to face, though; means Kenma’s face is suddenly quite close.Hinata’s hair is still damp, and the air coming in through Kenma’s slightly-open window is maybe bringing lightning with it, because it prickles across his neck before sliding away again. He wants to ask Kenma to close the window, but he’s having a hard enough time breathing as it is. Kenma curls closer, his limbs loose against the sheets, and Hinata has just enough time to acknowledge his own wonder at the curled grace of him and then he says, almost too soft to hear above the constant, rolling thunder, “I used to have this dream, every time it stormed.” He shrugs, a little, as if dissatisfied with his own phrasing. “Daydream, I guess, or kind of. Half awake, because I can never really sleep right when it’s like this.”Kenma’s been looking at him, but he stops when Hinata meets his eyes, his gaze sliding up to fix on the ceiling. “I’m in the middle of a field,” he says. “I’m alone, and there’s this big tree, on the top of a hill.” He stretches one of his hands upward, spreading his fingers wide like they’re branches, growing upward from the slim trunk of his wrist. “I go over to it, to take shelter from the storm, because lightning is supposed to hit the tallest thing and it—it does.” He swallows, something in his voice pulling Hinata’s gaze down his arm to his throat, to his face as he licks his lips. “It strikes the tree, but it doesn’t burn it just—glows, I guess, and crackles, and it’s not hot, it’s just warm and beautiful and I always reach out but I,” his mouth twists, “I always chicken out at the last second.”Hinata shakes his head at him, wrinkles his nose. “That’s probably a good thing,” he says, but not too loudly, not wanting to jolt Kenma out of his rare talkativeness. “Don’t touch lightning, Kenma.”Kenma makes a face, dropping his arm. “Shut up,” he says without heat, and then shifts so he’s looking at Hinata full-on. “I just meant I—I always run from stuff. Beautiful things, bright things, things I want.” He lifts a shoulder, but whether it’s in a shrug or a little protective motion—curling further, making himself smaller—Hinata can’t tell. He doesn’t drop it again, though, doesn’t relax. “I guess I’m not really used to it.”Hinata swallows. “Used to what?”Kenma’s eyes flicker over his face. “Wanting stuff.”Hinata opens his mouth, his voice all dried up in his throat, and then the world cracks open above them, thunder crashing through the building with such force the walls seem to shiver in its passing. Hinata jumps and yelps and Kenma sits bolt upright, and then as the sound fades folds himself forward, pressing his chest to his knees and laying his arms along his shins like he’s trying to make himself one smooth angle. His face is mostly hidden by his hair, and his fingers—nervous, restless—are toying with his toes.Hinata has never wanted to fight a thunderstorm (unless Kageyama counted), but if it were possible to punch one he thinks he deserves one good shot in return for the breathless cusp of a moment it just stole from him.He runs a hand through his hair, gathering leftover rain between his fingers. “Kenma,” he says.Kenma doesn’t look at him. Hinata gnaws on his lip. “Do you think you’ll dream it if I’m here?”Kenma tucks his hair behind his ear so he can look sideways at him, his eyes wary. “I don’t know,” he says. “I’ve only ever been alone.”Hinata reaches out a daring hand, tugging gently at his elbow to get him to lie back down. He does, slowly; watching Hinata like he might explode at any moment.“If you do,” Hinata says softly, feeling foolish, obvious, clumsy. “You—don’t run away. It won’t hurt you.” He clears his throat. “Maybe—” he cuts himself off, embarrassed.Kenma looks at him through his lashes, waiting, expectant.Hinata’s face is burning. “Maybe it doesn’t strike the tree because it’s tall,” he mumbles, “but because it wants to be close to you.”Kenma stares at him a second longer, and then he closes his eyes. He reaches out and hooks two fingers into Hinata’s shirt—his own shirt, really, soft against Hinata’s skin—and tugs him a little forward, tilting his head until it brushes Hinata’s collarbone. “Don’t be stupid,” he says softly. “Lightning doesn’t have feelings.”Hinata laughs, and it comes out a kind of choking sigh, pushed out his mouth too soon by the crazy jolting of his heart. “Right,” he says. “Duh.”Kenma’s fingers tighten, and Hinata curls an arm over his back, keeping him close. He lets himself lower his head until his cheek is resting against Kenma’s hair, and breathes in the storm.
