Level Horizon (Haikyuu!! WingedAU)

Year One.25 1/1; Perception & Insight

A brother is a friend God gave you; a friend is a brother your heart chose for you. ~Proverb

~Three Months Later, High Summer~

Morisuke Yaku drops beside the small sulking crow with the gold tuft of hair.

Noya's just been brushed off in no uncertain terms by Hinata who is, like his leveler, in a foul mood. The arguments had been slowly coloring their other normal interactions— there is an invisible tension around the two almost constantly now.

Through the hot summer months, Morisuke has gotten to know each of the beach crew fairly well, but he still puzzles over the group's most colorful level pair. They are so frighteningly in sync sometimes that they could be the same person... and others, they are so antagonistic and hostile that he honestly worries they might kill each other.

It's nothing like Suga and Daichi who strike one of the cleanest balances that he's ever seen as levelers; he can't remember any point since meeting them where they've disagreed even once. Heh, Daichi even has a pet name for Suga—something about stars or the like of which the thrush always pinks at when he says it around the others. Not that the crow is conspicuous about it; the avians don't have as good of ears as he and the other cats, so he doubts any of them have caught the former sentry leader's quiet term of affection for his leveler.

But even the petty points of contention between the owl pair look like nothing more than occasional annoyances next to the grounded redhead and his crow leveler's periodic full scale confrontations. No, the dynamics between Hinata and Kageyama run the gamut, their range in their interactions akin to the ocean's many faces. They could be as easy as quiet waves that meld the sand calmingly across the beach to as chaotic as roaring breakers that crash against unyielding rocks.

Today has been one of the latter.

It's been cyclical, the heated fights coming in tandem with every trip the redhead makes into town while the black-haired setter remains at home. Really, Morisuke had woken this morning and predicted exactly how it would go.

The redhead would steadily chatter excitedly while the brooding crow would turn silent, growing ever more sullen the brighter his leveler got. It would eventually end with Kageyama making some scathing remark that differed from his regular insults because of the weight it carried and Hinata would pull up short before firing back one of his own. It would spiral down into the singularly most uncomfortable spectator sport until the grounded avian was red-faced and fuming and his leveler was almost swaying on his feet due to the 'breaking' reaction.

The fact that it didn't seem to affect Hinata the same way had been slowly driving the russet cat insane, because he'd never seen something like this before. He'd briefly wondered if they somehow weren't actually levelers and had quickly discarded the notion; Hinata's nightly glowing trick had firmly cemented that reality into place.

There had to be something else strange about their bond, though, because while the redhead might break out into a sweat indicating a mild fever, Kageyama was prone to becoming violently sick... not that Hinata had probably ever seen it. Kageyama had gone to great lengths to conceal that detail from him and it had made Morisuke frown that much more at the strangely one-sided 'breaking' symptoms.

The black-haired setter would go pale and eventually just stop talking. The most closed off expression that outwardly conveyed nothing but disdain would slip into place, and even if Morisuke saw it for what it was— a bid to simply keep himself on his feet, Hinata wouldn't recognize the extreme discomfort of his leveler and would puff up in fury at the sudden lack of communication of any type before turning and stomping off. Kageyama never pursued the argument further nor followed after the redhead as he'd leave for Sheru Bay at that point— probably more because he couldn't than actively choosing not to. Instead, he'd wait until the kid was out of sight and earshot before promptly emptying his stomach in the nearest bush.