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Hinata Shouyou does not get sick. Or, well, to be accurate, very rarely does he ever get sick. It happens once every two or three years, but when he does it’s an awful experience that leaves him bedridden for at least a week and just makes him feel all-around awful.
So he’s not really surprised when his most current bout of sickness leaves him hospitalized because of a way too high fever. The last time he was sick was probably the end of his second year in middle school and he’s just finished his first year of university.
That’s like, what, 5 years? It’s been way too long, even by whatever standards his body normally uses.
It’s been four days since Kageyama found him on the ground of their shared apartment, mumbling to broken glass and a puddle of water. He thinks the sight might’ve been funny if he hadn’t been drenched in sweat and interrupting his mumblings with harsh sounding coughs. He does remember giggling – giggles, not even laughter, his head was pounding like someone was beating like a drum and he’s giggling – at the look on his face before presumably passing out.
Then he’d woken up here and it all gets kind of blurry, but according to the doctors he’s been in and out of consciousness for the first day and half and then spent the rest of that time mostly delirious and talking to nothing.
It’s embarrassing because he knows people have visited and it’s definitely not the coolest way to be seen but he’s done equally embarrassing shit while fully conscious, so in the end it doesn’t really matter.
He’s finally doing better though, if not extremely tired, and the doctors say in a couple more days he should be good enough to go home –where he’ll have to continue resting they had sternly continued when his eyes lit up at the thought of going back to playing volleyball.
Disappointing, but not surprising.
What is disappointing is how boring the hospital is, there’s nothing to do and staying in bed all day is exhausting and makes his back hurt. He can’t wait to get out, to be free.
-
He thinks that maybe he’s delirious again because there’s an angel in his room with pudding coloured hair.
And angels aren’t real, or at least you don’t just see them walking around like it’s normal so clearly this person must be the creation of his fever-crazed brain, it’s a nice hallucination though, one of the better things he’s seen over the past few days.
He’s fiddling with one of the machines he’s attached to, and then scribbling something down on the clipboard they’re holding with a decidedly impassive face.
The other must notice his gaze because he tilt his head to face him and – oh my god those are gold eyes this person can’t be real, there really is an angel here with him he’s probably dying and they’re going to take him to heaven – now he’s just staring and he has to look so dumb.
“Do you need something?” He asks, voice slow and not exactly deep but still deeper than Hinata would have guessed.
It’s nice, soothing, and he thinks his eyes might have maybe started drooping a little just from that but that also might be because he’s still mostly sick and constantly exhausted.
“Are you real?” He finally ends up asking after a lengthy silence in which he was just stared at. He thinks he might blush, and is glad he’s already too warm to notice the difference. It’s a stupid question whether he’s asking a hallucination or a real person.
The other just stares, now with one eyebrow raised, before nodding slowly. “Yes, I’m a volunteer nurse here, do you need a doctor?” His face is still impassive but he’s almost certain that he can hear a hint of concern in it now –great, now he’s worried him.
“No!” He squawks and then just shakes his head when the other continues to stare at him. Ah, he shouldn’t have done that, now he’s dizzy and his heads throbbing.
“Well okay then,” he says, finally turning to face him fully, a small frown etched on his features, “I’m on duty here for the rest of the week so if you need anything just press that button over there.” He finishes, nodding over at a pale yellow button that rests on his bedside table.
“Got it,” he says after a beat of silence. Quietly resigning himself to any kind of suffering he might go through for the rest of his stay because he’s not sure he can face the other ever again.
The nurse nods one more time, a gentle almost unperceivable movement of the head, before exiting his room and closing the door behind them.
He manages to catch a proper glance at the nametag before he leaves, Kozume Kenma, it reads and he repeats it in his head, committing the name to memory.
-
As always, he spends most of his time sleeping while he’s sick, too tired to do much of else, and it’s not as if he can do anything while he’s awake anyways.
Hinata gets bored easily, and restless when he’s bored –which doesn’t help in the healing process as his mom would always scold. So sleeping really just solves everyone’s problems, even though he’s not exactly the most gentle sleeper.
(His mom says he’s stiller when he’s sick, something about conserving energy.)
It’s a good plan, except for when he gets better and stays awake for like three days straight to make up for all the sleep.
It also helps in avoiding that cute nurse, he hasn’t seen more than glimpses of him between naps since that first encounter which is good. He doesn’t want to keep looking like a half-sick fool in front of him; Hinata can look like a fool on all his own 100% healthy.
Wait, that wasn’t the point he was trying to make.
Ugh, whatever, back to sleep it is.
-
When he wakes up this time it’s to a gentle jostling in his shoulder, which confuses him because none of his friends, except like two, are good at gentle.
So when he finally opens his eyes and sees Kozume Kenma he’s not exactly surprised, but he’s sure as hell shocked. He doesn’t yell though, so there’s that at least.
“I need to check your vitals so if you could please sit up.” His voice is even softer than last time, as if worried or hesitant and for some reason it just serves to agitate Hinata more.
“D-do you wanna fight me or something?” He ends up blurting out, and then really, strongly, desperately, wishes that he was actually still on the floor of his apartment delirious and not here, in a hospital asking a nurse if he wants to fight him for no apparent reason.
He shoves his hands, which have – much to his horror – formed a weak fighting stance in front of him into his face to cover his probably blushing face and wishes for a swift and painless death.
There is a long, lengthy silence during which he grabs the pillows behind him and stuffs them over his face to avoid the other’s stare, and wonders if it’s possible to suffocate this way. He can feel the Kozume Kenma grab his arm and do whatever it is nurses do when checking one’s vitals, and wonders how much longer it will take.
It seems like an eternity later that the pressure on his arm disappears and he feels him lean away. He breathes a sigh of relief at the thought of this entire ordeal being over, and relaxes into the mound of pillows he has buried himself under.
And then they move, and he find himself face to face with Kozume Kenma once again. There’s a slightly upturn to his lips and his eyes seem brighter than they did before.
“Um, maybe later, okay?” He says, voice amused and Hinata simply nods, slightly speechless at the sight.
When he leaves Hinata thinks of that slight smile and bright eyes and wishes he could see more of it, wishes he could see an even bigger smile on the other’s face.
-
Because Hinata is both sort of kind of stupid and extremely overeager, the next time they meet he’s choking and coughing and maybe close to actually suffocating to death.
So maybe he’d been a bit too excited at being declared well enough to eat real and proper food and definitely been too fast while eaten. And, well yeah, now he’s choking on his food because he probably hadn’t chewed it properly.
His visions a bit blurry but he’s reasonably sure that someone just came into his room, and then the thoughts are confirmed by some not so gentle pressure on his back. His coughs sputter in time with the pounding against his back and suddenly he can breathe again and the world looks slightly less blurry.
The first thing he sees as his vision comes back into focus is Kozume Kenma with a frown on his face. His first thought is that he doesn’t much like that expression, and the second thought is that his face is much too close to his own.
“Are you okay Shouyou? I was just about to use the Heimlich but you looked better.” The rest of the sentence kind of fades away, his brain focusing on the first half.
Shouyou. He’s had friends for years that never called him by his first name and this person right here says it so freely and easily like he’s always referred to him that way.
His face flames and he starts to sputter so much he starts coughing all over again. Kenma, Kenma looks panicked in front of him. Except, not, he’s not sure how Kenma manages to keep his face so expressionless yet still manage to make his feelings clear so easily. Or maybe Hinata’s a bit crazy and imagining the whole thing.
“Do you wanna fight?!” He finally exclaims, voice too loud in this small quiet hospital room.
And Kenma, Kenma laughs a sound that though loud is just as soft as his voice and it makes Hinata’s chest feel so warm and he wants to hear that sound forever.
“No, you’d probably win and I don’t like losing all too much.” His laughter is quieter now as it ends, but the smile on his face is wider, brighter than when he first saw it –it’s so very beautiful he can’t help but think.
“R-right,” he replies, turning his head away.
Oh god, he is so very screwed.
-
He doesn’t see Kenma much after that second encounter, which is as much a blessing as it is curse. He feels like even more of an idiot whenever they talk but he also misses just seeing the other’s face. He’ll admit to have considered pressing that button, just so the other would have to come, but Hinata was raised better than that. He’s not going to distract anyone here from doing their jobs, especially when those jobs could be saving lives.
Still, he misses the other and his pudding coloured hair and eyes that were far too expressive for a deceptively calm face.
Hinata hasn’t had a crush in years and here he is crushing on a nurse he’s hasn’t seen more than three times, hasn’t really even had a proper conversation with and most likely won’t ever see again. Life is truly a cruel joke; Kageyama is goanna laugh at him when he finds out, or worse give him that weird pitying look which is just all around awful.
He’s too busy thinking that he doesn’t end up hearing half of what the Doctor in front of him saying but oh, right. That’s why he got lost in thought in the first place they said he was finally getting released from the hospital and that by the end of today he could finally go home.
He’s ecstatic because it’s been a week and sure he’s still going to have to rest a bit more at home but even just getting there is going to be outside and he’s so, so tired of being cooped up in this room for so long. He wasn’t made for such minimal movement it goes against his very soul.
A knock on his door startles him upright and he looks over to see Kenma, a coffee cup grasped tightly in his hand and looking about as nervous as Hinata has ever seen him –which, granted isn’t much but still.
“You’re getting released today, so I,” he tapers off and drums his fingers softly against the cup, Hinata doesn’t really understand, tilting his head as he waits for the other to continue, “I got you this cup of coffee as a congratulations.”
He walks into the room but stops about halfway to his bed, he looks a bit awkward standing nowhere in a room that seems too small to have such a place. “I didn’t know how you take it but I got you one of the sweeter drinks.” And then he’s somehow shoving the coffee into his hand even though Hinata is sure he didn’t see him move from his earlier spot, and then he’s gone, just like that.
He blinks at the empty space in front of him, and then down at the warm cup of coffee in his hands.
Well, he really is fond of sweet drinks.
-
When Kageyama arrives to pick him up he’s only just recovered enough from his shock to start slowly sipping at the drink, it’s cooler now but still decently warm, and he gets a half curious glance because of the drink because of it.
He doesn’t say anything about it though, too busy yelling at him for getting sick and needing a hospital and a bunch of other things and Hinata just laughs because they’ve been friends for nearly five years and Kageyama still doesn’t know how to show concern right most of the time.
It’s nice and familiar and he pretends he doesn’t feel sad as he the hospital doors close behind him, that he doesn’t feel like he’s missing something by doing so.
-
They’re halfway home and he’s already finished his drink, he’s just absentmindedly twirling it in his hands now. Thinking about how he knows it’d be weird to keep the cup even though he kind of really wants to.
“Did someone at the hospital buy that for you?”
“What?” The cup slips from his fingers, almost falling to the ground, at the little jump he makes as he responds. “What makes you ask that?” He asks instead of replying, and hopes his voice somehow doesn’t give him away.
“There’s a number written on the bottom, so I assume someone who bought it for you did it.” He doesn’t bother mentioning that it could’ve been the worker who made the drink him; not when he’s too busy staring at the number scrawled across the bottom of his cup.
Kenma it says, along with a cute little drawing of a cat head, and a number written hastily beneath it.
He smiles the rest of the way home, and ignores Kageyama’s calls of idiot when he continues to ignore him.
.
.
.
.
.
“Kenma, over here!” He yells, waving at him even as he excitedly bounds over to him.
“Shouyou,” Kenma says in greeting when they finally reach each other, and reaches over to grab his hand once it’s close enough, “let’s go.” He doesn’t look at him when he says it, trains his gaze straight ahead and Hinata knows it’s because he’s embarrassed.
He smiles wide as he gently swings their arms back and forth, and wonders if there will ever be a time again where he’s as grateful as he is for getting sick than he is right now.