Rigid Crow

How Lonely

"Shōyō!" Kenma stands at the door of the hospital room, two days after Hinata has awaken.
The corners of Hinata's mouth tremble into a smile. "Ke-m-ma."
Kenma's backpack falls from his hand to the floor. "Shōyō!" He blinks back tears as he runs to Hinata's bed. "You're awake! You're alive! Are you okay?"
     "He's doing as well as he can be," I answer in the gentlest way possible, because Hinata's a part of this conversation, too. "He has dubbed me as his voice for now, and I can answer most questions pretty well."
     I hope Kenma gets the gist. From what I can tell, Hinata likes to be spoken to, but likes to be answered for.
     "Shōyō, we were praying every day for you. We made, like, a hundred wishes at the shrines." He takes Hinata's hand. His eyes grow with concern. "Your hand is clammy." Realizing he may have said something wrong, he shakes his head and lets forth a steady laugh, which is a sound I've never heard from Kenma before. "That's okay." He gives Hinata's hand a reassuring squeeze. "I've heard you're improving by the minute. You'll be back on the court in no time." His eyes narrow and his teeth bare in a grin. "But don't think I'm going to go easy on you because of all this."
     Hinata tries to smile again.
     "You're the same as always, aren't you Shōyō?" Kenma comments with a relieved grin spread across his face. "I was afraid the injury may have messed with your head, like in those video games where someone gets injured and wakes up from their coma and they don't remember anyone."
     "Kenma, honestly, we don't need those images please," I grumble. "Seriously, does that stuff even happen?"
     "Uh-huh," Kenma replies, still facing Hinata. "I saw it in a movie once. It can totally happen."
     I roll my eyes. "Fine, fine."
"Kuroo wanted to come with me, Shōyō, but a family thing came up. He asked me to give this to you. I guess it's a letter or something. Kinda weird... I'll open it for you, I guess." Kenma tears the envelope open. He pulls out a note, and begins to read. "'Hey, Hinata! The Nekoma team was ecstatic to hear of your waking up! We hope you're doing awesomely, and we look forward to playing with you again! Love, Kuroo and the Nekoma team. P.S. Say hi to Tsukishima-kun for me!!!!! -Kuroo'."
Kenma closed up the letter and put it on the side table. "That... was actually not as bad as I was expecting."
Hinata reaches out his trembling hand for the letter. I take it up for him, noticing him struggling. "What? You wanna see it?" I pull out the note, but something else from the envelope flutters to the floor. From the back, it looks like a photo. I pick it up, flip it over, and literally snort. "What. The. Heck."
"What? What is it?" Kenma asks suspiciously, as if his worst fears have been confirmed.
I show the picture to Hinata first. His eyes light up, and he smirks.
I finally show it to Kenma, who looks at it, horrified, and says, "I'm going to murder him."
This picture must be an image Kuroo snuck during a video chat or something. The photo is completely distorted with a filter, so Kenma looks absolutely horrid. This is some great blackmail, but I have no need for this piece of gold here.
I hand the picture back to Kenma. "Send Kuroo our thanks."
He snatches it from me. "Sure." He looks back at Hinata and smiles. "I'll come back soon, okay?" He nods are me, then he leaves, picture still in hand. Kuroo is going to get an earful later.
I sit down, trying to think of a topic of conversation. "Oh!" Something comes to mind. "Hinata, the team made a scrapbook of your birthday party for you."
Hinata looks at me with a confused expression.
"Oh, that's right. Congratulations, you're seventeen years old."
Hinata blinks, his mouth open. "Huh?"
"Your birthday. You had a birthday. And we- well, we, uh, we had a party in your honor, Hinata. You have unopened presents and everything and we made a scrapbook picturing everything that happened. You would've loved it."
     Hinata continues to stare at me, baffled, like Why the heck would you throw a birthday party for someone who wasn't even going to be there?
     "Now that I'm saying it out loud, I realize it was kind of a stupid idea, because the whole thing was counting on you waking up to see it later, so why didn't we just postpone it for when you were actually awake?"
     Hinata smirks, like Who's the dumbass now?
"Oh, come on, you totally want to see the pictures."

                                ::::::::::::

     We spend the afternoon flipping through pictures, and I can tell that Hinata enjoys every minute of it. When we're finished, he lifts a trembling finger, pointing the the gifts in one of the last pictures.
     "Oh, yeah. You have a ton of those we need to open sometime. I'm sure your parents can get those for you and help you open them."
     He looks at me, concerned and confused by me answer, like Why can't you just do that?
     I sigh and grimace. "I'm not going to be able to see you a lot after today," I explain. "School's starting back up, and that means practice, and I just won't have the time anymore. I'm sorry."
     Hinata's eyes flit away. He gives a shaky nod of his head. He knew this, of course, but I still hate to think of how lonely he's going to get here. He won't be able to keep himself occupied. The most he can do is stare at the wall and maybe watch a little tv. If I weren't able to play volleyball anymore, I don't know what I'd do. I feel really bad for the guy.
     But at least he's alive.