As the days dwindle by, as summer shifts to autumn, sweltering heat slowly morphs into biting coldness, the dull ache of losing to Aoba Johsai fades away, two weeks of hellish practice camps, and Kei is so done. Leave it to the King to make Kei annoyed.
Today seems like one of Kageyama's off days, Kei doesn't know what brought it on, maybe there's still some lingering tension between Kageyama and Hinata, but Kei didn't see anything out of the ordinary for the freak duo. Their new quick attack still needs work, with its seventy percent success rate. So, what is causing Kageyama to act like this? Is he still shaken after the Aoba Johsai match? Still, that shouldn't have affected him that much, considering after he got benched, when he was allowed back onto the court, the King seemingly did a complete 180 on his behaviour. Then again, even Kageyama has off days. No matter how rare they are.
Kei choses to ignore it, really how bad can Kageyama get? He knows how much Kageyama wants to change, trying to change. So when Kageyama yells at Hinata for the nth time today, Kei pays no attention to it, Kageyama always has something to say, criticize or correct when it comes to the short middle blocker, so it's not out of the ordinary. However, Kageyama shouts at him, and Kei wants to hit a serve at the back of the King's head, because what. Sure, him and Kageyama have a complicated way of dealing with plays on the court, but Kageyama is one to be direct, not demanding when it comes to Kei.
"What is your goddamn problem today!" Kei is angry, not directly at Kageyama (okay maybe a litte), he should've gotten used to it by now, when Kageyama's old ways sometimes rares its ugly head. Kei is also well aware he's interrupting practice, but he can't just stand by and allow this to continue. Not even Daichi is mad at Kei's outburst, their captain is more on the shocked side, same with the rest of the team.
Kageyama looks like he's ready to kill Kei, but he doesn't care. Kei doesn't care about the surprised looks of his teammates, the gasp Hinata let's out when Kageyama allows Kei to pull him out of the gym by his wrist, nor does Kei care about his noesy teammates eavesdropping on their conversation. They haven't told the team about their developing relationship as yet, not out of fear, rather they wanted to see if they would've actually work out, and even when a month passed by, neither of them wanted to break the news, mainly because they're both assholes and wanted the team to figure out on their own, and because this thing that they have is theirs and theirs alone.
"What is going on with you today, King," Kei asks, straight to the point, there's no need to sugarcoat anything for Kageyama, he isn't some child that needs to be coddled.
"Why do you even care, Tsukishima?" Kageyama roars, his voice rough, blue eyes ablaze with anger, and something else, unnoticed, the faintest flash of sadness, maybe fear, and Kei is shocked. Then all the pieces fall into place, Kageyama yelling at Hinata for not hitting his toss, Kageyama yelling at him for not jumping high enough, fast enough, Kei suspects his last match in Kitagawa Daiichi came back to haunt him.
He knows all too well about what happened back in junior high for Kageyama, he saw it with his own two eyes, the tyrant king, egocentric, and downright oppressive. However, Kei may dislike Kageyama to an extent, and it mellowed out into something completely different — so, not really dislike, considering they've been dating for a month, yes, him and the King are honest-to-god boyfriends — and he can, as unbiased as possible, see how much Kageyama has changed, is changing, a constant evolution. Kei will even go as far to say that he's glad Kageyama is no longer a tyrant king, rather he's growing into a true leader, but Kei will never admit that out loud — he has a reputation to upkeep.
