Misconception and Other Tragedies | Kagehina

Watermelon

Hinata's POV

The street lights from outside blurred together as Hinata stared out the police car window, nothing but static filling his mind. Daichi had come to pick him up after finishing his night shift, and they were now riding to his and Suga's house. Hinata had jumped at the sight of his police car at first, thinking he was going to be taken in for loitering or something. To his great relief, it had just been his old team captain.

Daichi had gotten out fo the car, gone straight to Hinata, who was still sitting on the bench, and crouched in front of him. He asked Hinata how he was holding up. Hinata had nodded, which hadn't been a real answer, but all at once he didn't feel like talking. He wanted to sleep.

"You can't keep all of this to yourself," Daichi's voice brought him back to the present. "You're going to need to tell someone."

"I can't," Hinata deadpanned. He brought his knees to his chest and clutched his arms, keeping his gaze strictly out the window. "It's embarrassing. I..." he felt his voice begin to shake and promptly shut his mouth before he made Daichi worry more.

The light in front of them turned red, and Daichi braked. Once they were stopped, the dark-haired cop took the opportunity to look at Hinata. He frowned. The guy was curled up and despondent, so something really bad had to have happened. Hinata's confident, bold streak seemed to have been ripped out of him, leaving a wandering shell of a person. His mannerisms actually somewhat resembled Tsukishima's or Kageyama's; cold and expressionless. It was concerning, to say the absolute least.

"Hinata, we're family," Daichi spoke up. "Karasuno or not. Whatever's wrong, we'll get through it together, as a team."

Hinata made eye contact with Daichi for a brief moment, a ghostly smile of gratitude pulling at his mouth.

A car horn blared behind them, and Daichi jumped as he realized the light had turned green. He awkwardly apologized to no one as he stepped on the gas once more.

Daichi's as dependable as always, Hinata thought.

The silence stretched on, the roar of the car filling Hinata's ears. He had to focus on that roar, he found, or he'd start to hyperventilate. It crossed his mind several times that he was probably overreacting, that he should probably just go back to practice and forget about the whole thing. But every time, the hands found their way back to him, probing, touching, stripping him of his sanity. He couldn't think about volleyball anymore; it was too tainted right now.

He tried to find some memory, song, sound. Anything to keep him from breaking down. The thing that came to mind was rather strange.

It was several years ago, in his third year of high school. He was at the annual training camp for the volleyball teams in the prefecture. However, this memory, if it even was one, didn't appear to be volleyball related at all.

It consisted of him and Kageyama, sitting on a hill. The barbecue was going on down below, at the bottom of the hill, but the faces and people were unfamiliar and unimportant to him. The sky was blue and clear. A breeze blew softly. The grass was that lush, summer shade of green. He and Kageyama were all that mattered.

There was a plate of watermelon between him and Kageyama, which they were eating from. Hinata liked watermelon. It was among his favorite foods. However, he didn't want the watermelon to be there. He wanted to sit closer to Kageyama, but he couldn't because of the stupid watermelon. He wanted to talk to him, but he couldn't. Because of the stupid watermelon. He wanted Kageyama to look him in the eyes, but Kageyama was too focused on the watermelon to pay any attention to Hinata.