Stuck In The Middle With You [Kagehina]

Chapter Two: Nekoma

Takeda-sensei sprinted into the gym, papers in hand. He was out of breath, as he usually was when he appeared like this. "Team!" he shouted, still catching his breath, "I've set up another training camp with Nekoma High! It's next week, the whole week. Food and lodging will be provided, just like always. And, since this seems to be tradition, we'll be having a barbecue as well!" Sugawara and Daichi smiled, the latter giving us a thumbs up.

The team roared with excitement. We all seem to love going to these things. 'I can't wait to see Lev and Kenma!' I thought to myself, a big grin on my face.

"Hey, dumbass, why're you smiling like an idiot. We have these all the time. Is there anything that doesn't excite you?"

"I'm just happy to see my friends, is all. How about you? I saw you trying to fight back a smile when we won against Date Tech a couple days ago." I made sure to say it in an obnoxious tone. "Were you proud of me, Kageyama?" I said this even more obnoxiously.

"Tch. Of course I was, dumbass," he muttered to himself.

"Sorry, couldn't hear you," I teased.

"Ugh. I said yeah, dumbass. I was glad that yo- that we could pull that off so well on the first try outside of practicing." he grabbed me by the hair as he said this, with his mean expression on. I pushed his buttons, all right. When he let me go my hand went immediately to my head where it hurt. 'There's only so much of this I can take, Kageyama.' I figured I should try to do that to him sometime, to show him how it feels. 'Aw who am I kidding, I can't reach him... wait... maybe if I jumped...? No that's dumb, Shoyo.'

It was Friday, so we were getting our things packed and ready to leave in the morning. 'The perfect chance to work on our secret weapon again.' I was grinning madly. I couldn't wait.

~~~~

Suga and Daichi were by the bus doors, telling everybody to get in pairs, which would decide how they sit in the bus. Kageyama and I traded glances, then stepped closer together. "...I'll beat you to the seat," I said.

"Oh no you won't!" He charged onto the bus and started heading straight to the back seat.

"Ugh. KAGEYAMA GET BACK HERE! YOU BETTER NOT STEAL THE WINDOW SEAT!!"

"Hinata! Kageyama! Ugh, it's no use." I barely caught Daichi's words as I followed Kageyama in hot pursuit. I attempted to jump over the back of one of the seats to get ahead but only ended up slowing myself down.

"Nice one, Hinata. For someone able to jump so high, that was honestly more than pathetic."

"Tsukki-" Yamaguchi started to say. He was swiftly cut off by Kageyama yelling at me for being an uncoordinated dumbass.

I slid into the seat next to him, a little ticked off that he actually did steal the window seat. 'I mean, he could've at least been a little bit considerate.' I found it hard to stay mad at Kageyama for something so trivial, though. He's my best friend, after all.

After Kiyoko and Yachi finished doing their final headcount, the bus took off. I looked past Kageyama out the window for a while, but then started getting bored. "Hey, Yama-" he snapped his head in my direction, glaring at me, "Don't call me 'Yama'." I sighed, "Okay... well, what's your favorite color?" He appeared to be putting quite a bit of thought into this one simple question. He sat on the question for about two full minutes before replying, "Blue."

"Oh, cool! Mine's red!" I paused to think of another question to ask Kageyama.

"Why do you like milk so much?"

Kageyama froze for a second, then turned to glare at me. "The hell kinda question is that? I like it because I like it. Simple as that."

"Well, if I'm so bad at asking questions, then why don't you start asking some?" I looked at him and realized that I hadn't ever actually seen Kageyama this close up before for more than a few seconds. I couldn't help but start pointing out all the things I hadn't noticed before. Between Kageyama's eyebrows were what seemed to be permanent wrinkle lines – probably from glaring at people so much. He also seemed really relaxed right then.