Calm My World [Kagehina]

Chapter 14: Love

[CW: Mentions of self-harm/cutting]

After walking Hinata home and going to class, Kageyama arrived back at home to find Suga eating cereal at the kitchen table. He took off his shoes and dropped his backpack by the door before coming in to sit next to his roommate.

"Hey," Kageyama said in greeting.

"Hey," Suga answered, looking up. "Did I see that Hinata spent the night here?" His eyebrows were raised and Kageyama was surprised Suga didn't wiggle them at him in a suggestive gesture.

"Yeah," Kageyama answered, blushing slightly. Suga just smirked and took a drink of orange juice. He didn't plan to say anything else, though he was thinking plenty. But he noticed that Kageyama seemed to want to say more.

"Do you want to talk? Was everything okay?" Suga was now concerned for his friend.

Kageyama hesitated slightly, debating how much to tell his roommate. Ultimately, he decided he needed to talk about this ... thing with Hinata since it was bothering him so much.

Kageyama didn't quite meet Suga's eyes when he admitted, "He, um, saw my scars. On my arm."

Suga inhaled sharply, making Kageyama's blue eyes snap to Suga's brown ones. Suga realized that Kageyama looked extremely fragile and vulnerable in that moment. He knew Kageyama was ashamed of his self-harm scars. That was why he almost always wore long sleeves that covered them up, hiding them from the world and maybe even from himself.

Suga asked quietly, "What did he say?"

Kageyama looked down at the table where his hands were resting, his fingers intertwining in a nervous habit. "He... he kissed the scars. And then he said, 'please don't hurt yourself anymore because it would hurt me too'."

"Oh." The small sound escaped Suga's mouth as he took in the enormity of Hinata's words. "Oh, that's so sweet."

Kageyama looked up from his hands and met Suga's gaze. "I know. And I just..." Kageyama couldn't finish his sentence because he was overcome with emotion. His throat closed up making it hard to swallow. He sat there, trying to do several things at once - get words out, make sense of this overwhelming emotion, explain everything to Suga. But nothing seemed to solidify in his mind. There were just snatches of words, fragments of feelings, floating around like leaves in the wind, and he couldn't catch them. And then, he didn't want to. It was all just too much.

Suga reached over and put a hand over Kageyama's fidgeting fingers. "Tobio, you don't have to explain anything to me, you know that. But if you want to talk, I'm here."

Kageyama managed to nod slightly, still wrestling with emotions and unable to allow words to escape from his lips yet. These feelings he had, for Hinata, this love, was so overwhelming, so overpowering it took his breath away. He had never felt anything this strongly before. It was both exciting and terrifying at the same time.

"Suga," he began, desperately searching for a way to express how he was feeling. "What if... what if he gets to know me more and... stops liking me?"

There it was, the confession of weakness, the admission of inadequacy that he had been so afraid to articulate.

"Kageyama, I'm sure that won't happen."

"But what if it does?" Kageyama sounded a little desperate, a little urgent now.

Suga was quiet for a moment, studying his friend's tortured face. "You're worried that if you open up yourself to him, allow yourself to love him, that it might not work out and you'll be heartbroken. So maybe, it's better not to. Love him, I mean. Something like that, yeah?"