The Sun in a Sea of Darkness

Speeding

"Hinata!" cried Kageyama, as an oncoming car made its way down the street, barreling toward the red-haired teenager, who was too busy dancing in the street singing to himself to notice the car, already speeding on a neighborhood street, coming his way. The younger male ran out into the street, wind ripping through his hair, adrenaline coursing through his veins as he tried to do everything he could to save the older teenager who had changed his life so much for the better. The only thing running through Kageyama's mind was to save him. To save the one he had now realized that he had loved so dearly, held so close to him, now to the point of dying for him. Kageyama grabbed Hinata, shoving him to the ground across the street, thanking his ancestors that he had saved him. Though, upon pushing the smaller the male, it had slowed down the taller one's momentum. This he hadn't realized until it was too late.

***

Hinata grunted at the sudden impact, and winced at the noise following soon after. It sounded like a *boom* but like a metal on wood type of boom, not an explosion. The wind was now knocked out of the boy, desperate to catch his breath as he squirmed on the ground, gasping for air. The air from the Spring had always been moist, and humidity in this sense was not Hinata's best friend. Once composed, he redhead shakily sat up gripping his chest and rubbing his head and back, eyes still closed, prolonging the expected dizziness. He had no idea what had happened or why he was now on the ground. Hinata opened his eyes, wiping them free of dirt in the process, and nearly passed out right then and there at the sight. Tears quickly welled in his eyes at the scene that lay in front of him. His mouth gaped in shock.
Sprawled on the ground, just a few feet in front of Hinata, was his partner, his setter, his best friend, the person who had pushed him to be better since the beginning, but also the person that annoyed the hell out of him the most next to his sister. The man he was in love with, but never got to tell him.
Hinata couldn't say anything. His throat and mouth quickly running dry, tears ran down his face and his entire body started shaking. He stared in shock, eyes scanning the younger ones entire body, desperately and silently begging for signs of life. It was too soon. Kageyama shouldn't be leaving. Not yet. There was so much they had yet to do. Hinata had to tell Kageyama how he felt, feelings mutual or not. They were supposed to go to Nationals together. They were supposed to graduate together. Surely he couldn't be leaving so soon. All because he saved him. All because Hinata was dancing in the street and not paying attention. He had to save him; he had no choice. Now it was Hinata's turn. More tears spilled at these thoughts as he stared at the seemingly lifeless being in front of him. Much to Hinata's doubts, he watched as Kageyama gasped for air, and relief washed over Hinata in both a grateful and unsettling manner.
Blood spilled out from under the setters head, soon making a pool that he had to lay in. His pale face now tattered with pulled up asphalt and concrete, probably scarring his face permanently. His raven hair now sticking to itself and the ground due to the blood collected, Hinata snapped out of his senses and scrambled over to his best friend, attempting not to trip himself.
"Kageyama! Kageyama- oh my god," he cried, his sobs racking his small body. He positioned himself, pulling the setters head into his lap, now sitting in his blood, and the blood from his head staining his pants. Hinata placed one of his hands under his head at a desperate attempt to stop the flowing crimson liquid. It quickly seeped through his fingers. Hinata's other hand made its way to Kageyama's cheek, stroking and slightly shaking him at the same time, begging for him to wake up. "Kageyama.. Tobio, please," Hinata had said Kageyama's first name for the first time through sobs, which he wasn't planning on doing. His hand pushed his bangs back, revealing his scraped forehead, and made its way back to his cheek. The spikers tears now dotted the raven haired's face, Hinata quickly wiping them away.
Hinata quickly looked up in utter desperation, looking around for any bystanders. Of course, none were around. No one was around at this hour. They were coming home from a practice, and they had ended up staying late because Kageyama wanted to practice some more sets. He looked back down at Kageyama, still barely breathing. "Hang in there okay? You're going to be alright, you understand?" Hinata breathed, trying to catch his breath in between sobs. He turned around, seeing that the car that had hit Kageyama was now in contact with a telephone pole, smoking. The hood was up, covering the windshield, and the front of the car smashed into the pole. He snarled in disgust, silently hoping the car would erupt in flames, killing the driver inside.
Unable to move from where he was, Hinata took his hand off of Kageyama's face, and reached for his phone, not caring that both of his hands were covered in his partner's blood. He urgently dialed for an ambulance, and knew that unless he started breathing normally again, the responder wouldn't be able to understand him. Eventually, Hinata was able to give the responder their location, and returned his attention to Kageyama.
The bleeding had slowed down, thank goodness, and Hinata watched in discomfort as the setter was still struggling to breathe. His hand made its way back to Kageyama's cheek, not knowing if he was going to make it out alive. What if the ambulance didn't get here fast enough? What if he dies of blood loss? What if he survives, then dies of infection? Hinata shook his head, ridding his mind of those thoughts. He's alive right now, and that's all that matters. He may not be in the best of shape, but he's alive. Hinata's eyes ran dry of tears, his head now pounding from the previous impact and the crying earlier that was so strong that it racked his brain once more.
There they sat, Kageyama's head in Hinata's lap, sitting in a pool of the setters blood in the middle of the street. The street lights flickered, shining a soft glow on the two. The street was silent; not even the birds were chirping. Hinata watched Kageyama's chest rise and fall shakily with every attempt at a breath. To anybody else, this would have been a fever dream, or even a nightmare. Hinata knew what was happening, knew the urgency, but he couldn't do anything until help arrived, and prayed to everyone and everything he could think of to keep his partner alive long enough. Hinata closed his eyes and ducked his head, barely having the strength to keep himself upright.
As if on cue, ambulance sirens could be heard in the distance. Hinata lifted his head up, eyebrows arched with the last sliver of hope. Kageyama was still breathing, the same way he had been. It took them what seemed like forever to reach the spot where the duo sat. Once the ambulance had turned the corner, the sirens now blew out Hinata's eardrums, and the lights nearly blinded him. He squinted his eyes shut, turning his face towards Kageyama, away from the light. Subconsciously squeezing the younger one tighter, Hinata realized that he could never possibly lose the person in his arms right now. Just the idea of it was unbearable, let alone it almost becoming a reality when he didn't even realize it. Hinata heard doors slam, and he shakily chuckled.
"You did it, Tobio. They're here. You're going to be fine," Tears welled in his eyes again as he opened them, stroking his cheek with his thumb. He looked up to the sky, the stars shining. He silently thanked his ancestors and everyone else he had prayed to for letting Kageyama stay longer; to let him live his life; to let him continue to play volleyball; so their dreams could come true.
To Hinata, the rest was a blur. He remembers riding in an ambulance, given a new pair of clothes, and being engulfed in a hug from the entire team. What had happened on that spring night was something that Hinata would never be able to forget again. He would also never be able to forgive himself, for letting himself be so careless, for putting himself in such utter danger to the point where he had to be saved, and where the person who had saved him meant more to him than anyone, and nearly died. He put his elbows on his knees, leaning over on the chair he was sitting, and let his head hand in disgust at himself. He clasped his hands together tightly, intending to give himself some sort of pain for himself, for that's what he thought he deserved. Tears started spilling, dotting his hands and the hospital floor below him. Kageyama was going to hate him, for sure. He was going to scream and cuss and wish death upon Hinata for being so careless. He'll never talk to him again, leaving Hinata's heart with only half. To much of his relief, his thoughts were interrupted by a quick beeping sound somewhere in the distance, and a buzz of doctors running towards it. Hinata flinched, silently thanking the beeping for distracting him.
He was sitting in Kageyama's ICU room, awaiting his arrival back from surgery to repair the tear he had in the back of his head. To his knowledge, nothing else was wrong with him other than minor tears and bumps, thankfully. Just his head was banged up. Banged up was an understatement. Hinata sighed and closed his eyes, breathing in the hospital smell, praying that Kageyama was going to be okay.
Kageyama's parents and sister were out of town, but aware of the news. They weren't able to come back, though, due to the heaviest snowstorm in history over where they were staying. So all he had for support was the very reason why he ended up in the situation he was in.
After what had seemed like four weeks, Hinata heard the familiar voice of Kageyama's doctor off in the distance. He stood up, scurrying out the room. He saw Kageyama on a hospital bed, hooked up to all sorts of wires, and eyes closed, his breathing now steady. There was a bandage around his head, going under his raven bangs, and around the back of his head. Hinata shuddered, always hating the look of someone in a hospital bed. But this was Kageyama. There was no way on Heaven's Earth he could possibly hate Kageyama. Hinata quickly stepped out of the way, allowing the nurses to wheel Kageyama into his room. Hinata's legs quickly grew weak, soon collapsing onto the wall, gripping to the wall for support. He had suddenly gotten dizzy. All Hinata had was a minor concussion, but dizziness was a side effect.
Seeing this, Kageyama's doctor stepped away from the nurses station, walking over to Hinata. The young man gained his composure, seeing Kageyama's doctor walking over to him. He shook his head, but that only made him dizzier.
"Are you alright?" Kageyama's doctor asked with concern laced in his voice. Hinata quickly nodded as the nurses walked out of Kageyama's room, indicating they had gotten him settled. The doctor took off the tight cap that he was wearing, crumpling it into a ball. He gave Hinata a small smile, tossing the cap into the trash. "You're close to him, aren't you?" The doctor asked, montioning to Kageyama in his sleeping state.
Hinata swallowed and bowed, "Yes sir." His answer was short but genuine. The doctor's smile widened; knowing that his patient had someone who had cared about him so much put the doctor at ease.
"Let me run a few vitals and then you can spend the night. You're probably exhausted from all of the excitement," the doctor concluded. Suddenly aware of his exhaustion, Hinata felt his eyes get heavy and every limb felt like 50 pounds on the small body. He leaned against the wall for support as the doctor walked into the room, pulling some latex gloves from a cardboard box.
The smell of the building he was standing in was nauseating. A mixture of cleaning supplies, disinfectants, and clean linen filled Hinata's senses, making him dizzier than needed. The sounds too. The occasional rapid beeping, the phone rings, the silent chatter among the staff. The feel of everything was either super sleek and smooth, or just unnecessarily coarse and rough to the touch. The sights Hinata saw made him even more sick to his stomach. Across the hall from where he was standing, a man lay on his back with a tube down his throat, having a machine breathe for him. In the room next to that, there was a woman, late thirties maybe, probably has kids, with a circular contraption surrounding her head, much like a halo. She was unconscious from what he could see, and had soft restraints around her wrists, as well as mittens that not even the slickest of people could get out of. Hinata looked away, suddenly realized he had been staring at too many things for too long. The light gray walls of the intensive care unit made it seem unsettling to be there. Who would want to be there? The walls didn't help, and neither did the tile floor that was placed in a checkerboard pattern or grays and whites.
Hinata had been staring at everything and taking in everything for so long that he hadn't realized Kageyama's doctor was standing at the nurses station again, handing the nurse at the desk what looked like a clipboard. Hinata's heavy eyes widened. Clinging to the wall, Hinata slowly walked into Kageyama's hospital room, cautious to not wake the setter. The redhead walked to the side of the bed, where his partner lay still. His eyes wandered.
The hospital gown was loose on Kageyama's lanky frame. It draped over his shoulders, and his collarbones were visible, begging to break free from the skin, for he was so skinny. Bruises littered the neck and chest that were visible, as well as his arms and hands, the things he took care of most. Some were just black-and-blue blotches while others were distinct purple, smeary lines, showing where a vein popped or where he got dragged along the ground. His chest rose and fell at a steady beat. Thankfully, he wasn't hooked up with a tube down his throat, just one going across his face and under nose. His raven hair, now free of blood, was still a bit damp, laying across his forehead in his usual matter over the thin bandages. His eyes were shut in a light manner, as if he was sleeping peacefully and a car hadn't just run him over. Hinata looked back to his hands, giving a grave look at the extremities. Kageyama's hands were the things he treasured the most in his life. His nails were always filed short and smooth, you could never find one crack of dry skin on his fingertips, no matter how hard you tried. His long skinny fingers, once pristine, were now gray and cut up from the dirt and debris. The veins in his hand protruded more than usual due to the tourniquet on his arm for the IV that previously did Kageyama's blood tests. Never did Hinata ever think that he would see Kageyama's hands in such bad condition; a condition that he had caused. Kageyama was in this position because of Hinata.
Hinata shook his head once more, punishing himself with more dizziness. The halls were near clear, as the time neared close to eleven p.m. The light beeping of Kageyama's heart monitor was comforting to Hinata, for this gave him the hope that he was still alive and fighting, beating and breathing, and he wasn't leaving just yet. He felt his eyes get heavy, leaning back into the ICU chair that he had sat in at some point. He had quickly grown noseblind to the mixed variation of smells emitting from the hospital. Never did he think that the one March evening they had spent practicing late would turn out like this. Fatigue overran Hinata's mind, the steady beat of the heart monitor lulling him to sleep.