Saving Shoyo ✔︎

16//Epilogue// 🍋

Hinata had finally, finally, moved in. With him being a first year and all, Ushijima had already gone off to college by the time he was in his second year. Having just graduated, Hinata was now attending University with Ushijima, and rooming with the older male in his flat. They'd kept in touch, of course, and gone on numerous dates through the years, but nothing too intense.

It was a pace both of them were comfortable with, but now....now things were different. Well, they were living together, for starters, and Hinata was eighteen.

It was a recipe for disaster.

A month had passed since Hinata moved in when he had his first nightmare. It could've been the new environment, or just random resurfacing of memories, but Hinata dreamed about that day two years ago. His mind replayed every sick detail til he would've vomited if he could.

He woke up with Oikawa's voice ringing in his ears and soft, stifled sobs wracking his thin frame. The queen sized bed felt cold, and thick with sweat as he twisted around, doing his best to keep still. It would pass, Hinata knew, it had always passed before, but knowing that didn't make things much easier in the moment.

He hadn't had a nightmare about that day in months, Hinata was almost starting to think they'd gone away. He pressed his face firmly into the pillow, counting his breaths and ignoring the erratic beat of his heart.

He barely got any sleep that night.

The next day was uneventful, classes plowing by as usual, with little overlap between Ushijima's and Hinata's schedules. The only thing out of the ordinary was Hinata falling asleep during lecture, and nobody noticing. He missed three classes because no one had woken him up, and the professor hadn't given a rat's ass. Typical college.

Hinata didn't mind, though. Any time he spent awake that day he couldn't stop thinking about his dream, turning the events over in his mind despite how nauseous it made him. The redhead yawned, turning the key to enter their flat. Ushijima never had to stay longer than five, while Hinata had classes until seven at night, but Hinata liked it that way. After all, it meant fewer morning lectures and more dinner ready when he got home.

"Tadaima!"* Hinata shouted enthusiastically, closing the door behind him with a click.

*I'm home!

"Okairi,"* Ushijima turned briefly from his place over the stove, wearing that silly apron Hinata always teased him about. "I made ramen--the kind you like."

*Welcome home

Hinata grinned, slinging his messenger bag to the floor and hopping up on one of the stools and crossing his legs. "Mmmm, we haven't had black ramen for a while!"

"That's because I think it looks creepy," Ushijima huffed, and the smaller male chuckled.

"Yeah, sure, but you can't argue with the taste."

Ushijima gave him a look that said he could very much argue, which Hinata artfully ignored. Instead, the redhead took to studying Ushijima as he portioned out their dinner. The boy had grown a few more centimeters since high school, and his muscles were visible no matter what kind of shirt he wore. The tips of his hair now brushed his nose and midway passed his ear, the ace not bothering to trim it as the years went by, and he sometimes wore his glasses around the house, like now.

Hinata himself hadn't changed much, apart from reaching 168 cm's and getting an undercut. There was also the pair of wings he'd gotten tattooed into his upper back on his eighteenth birthday, but nobody knew about that.

After cleaning up from dinner, Hinata suggested they watch some anime together, and Ushijima agreed on the stance that he would pick the show. Hinata relented on the condition that he wouldn't be forced to re-watch Attack on Titan. Again.