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There’s a club in Rio, tucked away in a dark alley amidst the hustle and bustle of the city, that Oikawa’s passed a million times by now. He’s never gone in, despite the curiosity that gnaws at him each time the flash of blue, purple, and pink from the club’s flickering neon catches his eye. He shakes it off and keeps walking, following whatever group he’s rolling with to the closest bar and tries to forget the thump of the club’s pulse that he can feel on the pavement. Far too busy to explore on his own, he just lets it be, forever wondering what wonders it might hold the night he finally crosses the threshold. He knows none of his friends would ever want to set foot in a place like that, probably all glitter and a crammed dance floor, so it’s not worth even bringing it up.
So when Hinata asks Oikawa if he’s ever been and the setter responds with a “no” tinged with polite wistfulness, the literal human embodiment of sunshine falls into a state of shock. “I can’t believe you’ve never been to Boate ! It’s so much fun!! They have the best drinks, oh and the dance floor is HUGE!! I figured you of all people would be there every night. You’re so…” Hinata’s gesture robotically outlines Oikawa’s sitting figure. “You! You’re practically made for nightlife.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Oikawa asks with an amused smirk at Hinata’s assumption.
Hinata rolls his eyes, unceremoniously falling back into his seat and making their plates and silverware clink from the vibrations. “You know what I mean! Charismatic, adventurous, fun!?”
Oikawa nods, all those things are one hundred percent true. “Well I appreciate that my reputation precedes me. I just haven’t found the time, sorry to disappoint.”
“We’ve gotta change that. Tonight. You, me, the dance floor. Whaddya say?” Determination mixed with mischief flashes in the glint of Hinata’s eyes as he leans over the table they’re currently occupying in a small, oceanside cafe. It’s their go-to place to eat, to catch up, to bask in the glow of each other’s company… or maybe that was just Oikawa? Hinata’s face is inches away from his, holding his eyes hostage and making it impossible to look at anything else. He never noticed how there’s probably hundreds of freckles that dust Hinata’s nose and cheeks beneath his tan. Why does Oikawa suddenly want to connect the dots with kisses?
Oh. That’s right. He's attracted to Hinata.
Oikawa attempts to lean backward, giving himself some space and a chance at keeping his cool. “I don’t know Small Fry-”
“I told you not to call me that,” Hinata huffs, red cheeked and pissy.
“Do you want me to call you ‘Shortie Pie’ instead?” Oikawa raises an eyebrow, a challenge clear in his grin. He’d love to call Hinata Shortie Pie, the cutest pet name for the cutest man in Rio De Janeiro. The Shortie Pie Ninja has a nice ring to it.
“... No.”
“Exactly.”
“Fine, just don’t call me that when we go out dancing tonight,” Hinata says offhandedly and sinks back into his chair, taking a sip of his iced coffee.
“Now hold on, I don’t recall agreeing to go dancing with you.” Although he knows he can be easily persuaded if Hinata makes a compelling argument, or starts begging- he would prefer begging.
“Aw c’mon! I know you’ll love it, just give it a shot!” And the orange haired miscreant has the audacity to pantomime taking a shot. On a cuteness scale of one to puppies, Hinata is beyond. He’s on an entirely different level of adorable and Oikawa’s insides melt at the sight. “Are you scared I’m gonna out dance you or something?”
“No way, I dance just fine,” Oikawa says even though it’s been a hot minute since he last went dancing. And by a hot minute, he means at least a year and a half.
“Then it’s settled, we’re going. Tonight the Grand King makes his grand debut!” Hinata’s smile is infectious and tugs at Oikawa’s lips, despite the dread that settles into his stomach. “I’ll pick you up at nine, is that okay?”
The way Hinata is looking at him, completely tickled by excitement, makes it impossible for Oikawa to do anything but nod in agreement. He wants Hinata to look at him like this all the time.
“Okay,” he’s suddenly compelled to say.
“Great! It’s a date!”
—
Oikawa spends way too much time picking out an outfit to wear and styling his hair. He’s gonna get sweaty and disheveled anyway and he can already hear Hinata saying how it doesn’t matter how put together he looks. Still, that doesn't stop him from obsessively tugging at his cowlick and forcing it down with a glob of hair gel. Oikawa looks at himself in the mirror, assessing the damage. His brown hair is styled to look effortlessly messy, even though he knows that’s a load of horse shit. The outfit he chose is a yellow button down and tan chinos. It’s modest enough to give him an air of ease, and the chinos make his butt look especially enticing.
“Could be worse,” he says to himself, blowing his bangs out of his eyes. He looks at the dark screen of his phone as it rests on the lip of his sink. Maybe if he stares at it long enough, a text from Hinata will appear. It hasn’t worked yet, but he’s not one to give up. Hinata calling their little outing a “date” was truly the kiss of death. In addition to his getting ready woes, he wasted the entire day agonizing over whether or not their trip to the club would be a romantic date or a platonic date. They’re going dancing, so it has the potential to get romantic, and of course Hinata never clarified and Oikawa wasn’t going to ask him. How pathetic would that be? So he let his speculations fester, gnawing at his sanity. Is it possible to get a migraine from thinking too hard about whether your crush likes you back? Oikawa considers the possibility as he continues to glare at his phone. After what feels like a sufficient amount of time, he sighs and hangs his head.
Damn, when did it get this bad?
Before he can rhapsodize about his downward spiral, the buzz of his doorbell cuts through his thoughts.
“Coming!” Oikawa yells on reflex and rushes to the door. When he answers it, Hinata is standing there in a loud, pink floral print shirt and boat shorts with a comically large bottle of tequila in his hand.
“I brought a present~!” He brings the bottle up to his face and shakes it enticingly.
“Where did you get that?” Oikawa asks.
“That’s for me to know and you to never find out! You got any limes?” Hinata teases with a wink and flick of his tongue. He lets himself into Oikawa’s apartment and makes a b-line for his small kitchen area, kicking off his boat shoes along the way.
“They’re in the fridge,” Oikawa says from the doorway, eyes following Hinata as he sets the tequila on the counter and flings open his refrigerator door to rummage through the drawers. “That’s some outfit you got on. You trying to stop traffic?” He shuts the door and walks over to lean on his kitchen countertop.
Hinata’s head pops out from behind the door of the fridge, his smile already teaming with an air of sarcasm. “No, I’m just trying to get laid,” he says absolutely beaming.
As Oikawa’s stomach drops into his ass, he laughs at Hinata’s joke. “Aren’t we all?” He clears his throat and rolls up the sleeves of his shirt. Oikawa can only imagine how much fun it would be to undress Hinata, all giggles and kisses as he shrugs off every bit of fabric from his body, and it makes him shiver. This is going to be a long night of deflection, he can feel it.
“Which is why, Grand King Oikawa,” Hinata says like he’s some kind of herald for a royal court, “we are taking these shots!” He stands with an armful of limes and shuts the refrigerator door with his hip.
“You know we only need one lime.”
“Are you gonna question my methods all night long?” Hinata says over his shoulder, smug and challenging, as he dumps the limes onto the cutting board next to Oikawa’s sink. Normally, after being asked a question that’s charged with so much flirtatious energy, Oikawa would walk over and kiss the smirk right off the person’s face. However, Hinata isn’t just a person. He’s the only piece of Oikawa’s life in Japan that’s managed to find him halfway around the world and become the home he never knew he’d been missing. He opened Oikawa’s eyes to all the reasons why he loves to play volleyball beyond the medals and prestige. Most importantly, Hinata brought back some much needed fun into his drab and dreary world. He does not want to risk picking up on the wrong vibes and cares about their friendship to a fault. It’ll be the thing that keeps him from ever making the first move.
Oikawa shrugs and picks up the salt from his spice rack. He goes to stand next to Hinata, shoulders touching, and sets down the shaker. There’s no reason for him to stand this close. His kitchen may be small, but it’s big enough to give them the space to still have their own personal bubbles. He can smell the cologne Hinata’s wearing, beachy and clean, and it makes Oikawa feel all heady and light- already drunk on being so near. “What can I say, I’m a curious guy.” He rests his arm on Hinata’s shoulder, using him as a kickstand. There aren’t enough words that can describe how happy Oikawa is that Hinata never caught up to him in the height department.
“Apparently,” Hinata says with a light chuckle as he reaches for the smallest serrated knife in Oikawa’s knife block, still supporting his weight. “Make yourself useful and grab the shot glasses and booze.” He raises his shoulders in a sharp jerk, making Oikawa lose his balance and teeter to the side.
Oikawa considers shoving Hinata back, then he remembers he’s holding a knife and injuring the object of your affections is a big no-no.
“So bossy…” He grabs two souvenir shot glasses from the window sill above his sink, one that’s neon pink that says “Shot O’Clock” and another that’s in the shape of a bikini clad, and incredibly busty, woman’s torso, and reaches to take hold of the tequila bottle’s neck.
“Yep, I’m soooooooo bossy. Leave it to the Grand King to accuse me of being bossy!” Hinata jokes as he cuts a lime into slices. The juice rolls down to the base of the knife, making his skin sticky, and stains the wood of the cutting board. He brings his thumb to his lips and licks it and hums in content.
Oikawa wishes he could taste Hinata’s fingers.
“It takes a boss to know a boss,” Oikawa says and places the shot glasses down so he can open the tequila and pour, filling the glasses to the brim. “Don’t let it go to your head.” He makes a show of licking the side of his thumb for the salt while keeping eye contact. The way Hinata watches him, following the drag of his tongue with dilated pupils in a pool of hazy gold, almost tricks Oikawa into testing the limits. The tension between them is practically begging to be cut, it would be so easy. All he would have to do is take one step closer and press their lips together. So easy, yet so difficult.
Then Hinata shakes his head and reaches out to take Oikawa’s hand. Oikawa watches, heart thumping heavy in his chest, as Hinata takes the salt and taps enough to coat his wet skin. “I can’t make any promises,” Hinata says with a coy smile.
__
After three shots of tequila, they stumble through the streets of Rio and find their way into the Promised Land, Boate . Down a long flight of stairs that leads into an abandoned underground warehouse, colored lights twinkle from the ceiling that’s probably only centimeters away from the pavement above and bathe the dancefloor in the colors that catch Oikawa’s eye time and time again. They look down upon the crowd that bumps and grinds to the pulsating beat of the music from the highest mezzanine that surrounds the perimeter of the dancefloor, gripping the guard rail and leaning over as far as they can before they feel the drop in their stomachs from the height.
“We have to get down there!” Hinata shouts with a wild look in his eyes over Arianna Grande’s echoey whistle tones.
Oikawa swallows. As much as he enjoys partying, this is advanced partying. He’s not nearly drunk enough to disappear into a crowd and just let loose, but he can’t stop the words from leaving his mouth. “Lead the way.” Hinata has that effect on him, like a siren dragging him under into the depths. Only instead of drowning in the ocean, he’s descending a metal staircase, hand in hand with his captor, where the air becomes thick with the smell of alcohol and sweat. He’s swimming in it, breathing it in deep and hoping that it’ll clear his inhibitions by the time they find an open spot among the sea of bodies.
“C’mon!” Hinata turns around, adjusting the grip he has on Oikawa’s hand, and starts to side step with a playful bounce. He starts to sing along with the chorus, pointing his free hand to the sky.
“You’ll believe God is a Woman~!”
Oikawa watches him, enthralled by how easily Hinata can let go like this, and allows words of the chorus to bubble up within him to sing along.
“God is a Woman!” they both sing, voices already hoarse from trying to out shout each other. When the song fades and the crowd cheers, they erupt into laughter. For the first time in a very long time, Oikawa feels like a regular twenty-something instead of the premiere athlete he’s been training to be. Just another guy dancing with the person he has a crush on, hoping whatever trouble they get into will turn into something more.
“How we feeling tonight!?” The DJ shouts over the PA system. The crowd roars, clapping their hands and stomping their feet, and Hinata and Oikawa whoop right along with them.
“We’re going to take things a little slow for this next one. I bet you don’t know what’s coming next! Hold on tight, because we’re flying around the globe for this one.” The lights of the club fade into a hazy orange, the color of Thai iced tea that sweats on a hot summer’s day.
To probably every other patron in the club, the songs intro- a soft drum fill and descending strings followed by a melody played on the highest register of the piano that glimmers in your ears- doesn’t seem like anything too special. However, to the two Japanese men that stand in a state of shock on the dance floor, this song is their everything .
“HOLY SHIT!!!!” Hinata screams as the bass groove drives the entire club to move. “THIS IS MY JAM!!!!!” He immediately starts rocking his hips to the song’s intro. As he does this, he pulls Oikawa in, guiding him so the space between them almost disappears. Right before their bodies can touch, Oikawa pulls his hand away.
“What’s up?” Hinata asks, blinking in confusion.
In all honesty, Oikawa doesn’t know what’s up. He shouldn’t feel this reluctant to dance, he’s been out dancing before, but he knows his moves are rusty and the liquid courage that led him up to this point is starting to fade. Plus, he doesn’t want to admit all this to Hinata. He’s the Grand King, a God among men. Being too scared to dance is not very grand or kingly of him.
“I… I don’t know if....” Oikawa stammers pathetically. He wouldn’t blame Hinata if he decided to ditch him and find another dance partner. At least he can crawl away to the bar and drown his sorrows in more tequila.
“Here,” Hinata says, taking a step forward. He hooks his index fingers through Oikawa’s belt loops and pulls him in again, swaying to the beat, so their bodies are flush against each other. “Put your hands on my hips.”
With shaking hands, Oikawa does.
“See how I’m moving?”
“Y-yeah,” Oikawa gulps, eyes following the intoxicating motion of Hinata’s hips.
“You move like this too!” Hinata urges and wraps his arms around Oikawa’s neck. Oikawa tries his best to mimic the motion, rocking side to side with the beat.
“There you go!” Hinata beams before breaking out into song again, the first verse sounding so sweet in their native tongue. As they move, Hinata’s dancing becomes more languid, lazily rolling his body against Oikawa’s. It steals all the air from Oikawa’s lungs, leaving him dizzy and utterly breathless. Finally being able to feel what it’s like to be this near to Hinata, he struggles to contain himself. His hands move on their own accord, sliding downward to wrap completely around Hinata’s lower back and guide their bodies even closer. And Hinata’s warm hands move too, lightly caressing the nape of his neck and making the hairs there stand on end. If Oikawa thought he was drowning before, he’s engulfed in the undertow of Hinata’s dancing. The world around him doesn’t exist, it’s just them on the dance floor underneath the orange glow.
“Everything comes to an end in due time. Don’t hurry.”
Oikawa has no intention of rushing this, he could live in the curve of Hinata’s body against his for the rest of his life if he had the choice. Forever connected by the lazy pulse of the music and their hearts. As he brings their foreheads to touch, he sings along.
“While dancing the nights away, I’ve learned this magic. I’m sorry.”
At that moment, everything within Oikawa burns for Hinata, igniting in the pits of his stomach and spreading to every nerve end in his entire body. It roars for him to go further, to become as intimate as publicly acceptable. The feeling of Hinata’s breath on his face, stained with the scent of tequila and lime, mixed with the swell of the strings that blossoms into the chorus makes Oikawa absolutely lose himself. He doesn’t even register the soft press of his lips against Hinata’s until his mouth parts and their hot tongues slide against one another. Hinata’s hands slide up into his hair, pulling his head downward, and sucks on his lower lip, deepening the kiss in a way that makes all the blood drain from Oikawa’s head into his abdomen.
“You wanna get out of here?” Hinata pulls back and murmurs against Oikawa’s wet lips, twisting his hips just enough that Oikawa can feel a firmness between them against his hips.
“Fuck yes,” Oikawa all but moans and kisses Hinata hungrily one last time before they clumsily sprint into the nearest unoccupied single person restroom.