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For the tallest player on Karasuno’s volleyball team, Tsukishima Kei found the frequency with which he got the short end of the stick… unsettling.
He’d anticipated that the team’s trip to the beach – a venture meant to give them plenty of time for both training and bonding – would present more annoyances than opportunities for relaxation. Even so, he’d been hoping for at least a few moments of calm to enjoy the time near the ocean. He’d slipped a Murakami novel into his bag on the off chance he’d be able to slip away to a quiet spot for a while, but after day one’s packed itinerary, precedent didn’t leave him much faith in such an opportunity arising.
Unfortunately, not even a series of increasingly exhausting activities seemed to be enough to wear out the monsters on his team and grant him a calm evening. Their wells of energy proved, sadly unsurprisingly, to be bottomless.
As grating as all the chaos and noise was, watching pandemonium unfold provided at least some modicum of entertainment. Kei sat cross-legged at the end of his futon, slouched to rest his head on his fist, and watched as the team’s captain pinched his furrowed brow in distress.
“You said Tanaka and Noya have what in the where ?” Daichi posed his question in the flat tone suggestive of rapidly mounting anger.
“They have hair dye-”
“Hair dye.” Dachi repeated, interrupting his vice captain.
“Yes, hair dye, in the bathroom.”
“Hair dye… In the bathroom. Hair dye, in the bathroom, of this facility that Takeda spent weeks trying to arrange for us. Hair dye in that bathroom?”
Kei hid a snorting laugh behind his fist at the face Suga pulled. Though he held a similar position of responsibility, he was clearly taking plenty of enjoyment in announcing the latest shenanigans Daichi would have to put an end to.
Kei followed the third years with his gaze as they turned to head toward the bathroom, Daichi’s scowl only deepening as Suga explained the dye was for Tanaka’s armpit hair for losing some bet involving spiking drills from earlier in the day. Kei suppressed another laugh at the force with which Daichi flung open the door into the hallway, only to join the third years in stunned silence as they were confronted with a rather stressed-out Asahi shepherding an incredibly pink Hinata toward the sleeping area.
“What happened to you?” Daichi asked, the concern is his voice largely drowned out by the obvious irritation at yet another problem arising on his way to mitigate a potential disaster.
“Um, sunburn?” Hinata offered weakly, sheepishly twisting his fingers in front of him.
“I was trying to find him some cooling gel,” Asahi explained, “But it’s getting dark and I want to make sure Kiyoko and Yachi get back to their motel alright, so someone else is going to have to-”
“Tsukishima,” Daichi barked, not even bothering to turn around.
Kei’s brows shot up, not sure how he was involved in the current situation. “Yes, captain?”
“Give Hinata some of your aloe.”
“Excuse me?” Kei asked incredulously. He normally tried to be nothing but respectful toward Daichi, but was he really-
“I just watched you put some on your shoulders a few minutes ago, I know you have it in your bag. Help Hinata cover his burn and make sure he gets enough to drink. We’re not letting anyone get sick while we’re here, especially with how much we have planned for the next few days.” Daichi’s tone left no room for argument as he stepped around his teammates in the doorway to go deal with the second years wreaking havoc down the hall.
Kei only barely held back a scowl as Suga grinned and wiggled his fingers in a mockingly supportive wave, manic glee in his eyes as he trailed after the captain. He then watched, stomach sinking, as Asahi guided a clearly embarrassed Hinata toward his futon, three spots down from Kei’s.
“Thanks for your help, Tsukishima,” Asahi said, offering a grateful smile before striding back toward the building’s entrance.
Kei rolled his eyes as the third year gently closed the door behind him, cursing internally that there was no one else around to shirk his new responsibility onto. The other first years were helping Ennoshita clean up the dining area, while the second years not getting dye everywhere had likely vanished to avoid being caught in the crossfire.
A muffled jumble of what might be construed as Japanese speech coming from Hinata’s futon caught Kei’s attention, pulling him from his stewing.
“What was that, Shrimp?” he asked, not bothering to hold back any of his marked disdain for the current situation as he turned to look at his fellow first year.
Hinata let out a small whine. He was starfished belly-down on his futon, face smashed into his pillow. His position offered an unobstructed view of what must be the worst of his burn along the top of his back, shoulders, and calves. Kei winced sympathetically in spite of himself–it wasn’t pretty, the hue of the irritated skin offering fierce competition with the brightness of Hinata’s hair.
With seemingly gargantuan effort, Hinata rolled his head to the side, grimacing as he locked eyes with Kei.
“I said, you don’t have to give me any of your burn cream, I’ll be fine.”
Kei let out a long, grumbling exhale. “That’s very obviously not true,” he snarked, making a huffy show of unfolding his legs and grabbing at his bag to rifle for his aloe. “Besides, I’m not getting on Daichi’s bad side when he’s already mad at those idiots in the bathroom.”
“Asahi already helped me get a cool shower,” Hinata slurred, “So you really don’t have to. A good night’s sleep should clear it right up.”
Kei fixed a condescending, pointed glare at the near-glowing burns along Hinata’s normally pale skin.
“... Okay so maybe I need a little bit of aloe.”
“You think?” Kei said, stepping over Yamaguchi and Kageyama’s futons to hand the bottle of gel to Hinata.
When he didn’t immediately take the bottle, Kei clicked his tongue and shook it in front of Hinata’s face. “Come on, what are you waiting for? I want to get to sleep.”
Hinata at least had the decency to look apologetic as he ignored Kei’s outstretched hand.
“Sorry, Tsukki, I don’t think I’m gonna be able to get it myself.”
Long seconds of silence stretched out between them as Kei glared down at Hinata.
“Sorry! Like I said, you don’t have to help me,” Hinata grumbled, scrunching his nose and puffing his cheeks in irritation.
“Trust me, no one has ever wished harder for a statement to be true,” Kei said flatly, folding his legs to kneel next to Hinata. “And don’t call me that.”
“But Yams-”
“Don’t call me that.” Kei asserted, punctuating his statement with the loud snap of the aloe bottle opening. Hinata, perhaps making his wisest decision of the day, kept his mouth shut.
Kei briefly considered pouring the cold gel directly onto Hinata’s burns to watch him hiss and squirm, retribution for getting him involved in this situation. But the burns looked pretty bad, and he didn’t dislike Hinata enough to actually harm him, so he settled for pouring the aloe into his hands first. Letting it warm up at least a little bit would probably feel less jarringly uncomfortable against his hot skin.
“How did you even get burned so badly?” Kei asked, “I know for a fact Suga sprayed everyone with SPF 50 before we went outside this morning.”
“Yeah,” Hinata said, hissing as Kei made the first gentle pass over the top of his back, “He did, but I have really sensitive skin and I got so excited- ah ! About volleyball on the be- each ! That I forgot to reapply.”
“ Tch. Idiot.”
“Shut up, Meany-shima,” Hinata sighed, tensing his shoulders against the pain.
“Gladly,” Kei hummed, squeezing more gel into his palm and falling silent. Even the thick layer of aloe between his hand and Hinata’s skin didn’t disguise the obvious, radiating heat. He honestly did feel kind of bad for the little guy, knowing from experience the pain he must be in. He did his best to keep his touch light, and true to his word, kept quiet. He didn’t take much pleasure from harping on an injured teammate, regardless of how fun it might be to piss him off any other time.
Unfortunately, no taunting meant no distracting Kei from his task, freeing his thoughts to wander. He found himself thinking his current situation, while certainly not ideal , wasn’t actually so bad. With all their teammates elsewhere and the otherwise unbearably noisy Hinata subdued by the exhaustion accompanying sunburn, Kei actually, finally , had some quiet. Well, quiet punctuated by the occasional hiss or moan from the boy in front of him.
Kei swiped a layer of cool gel over Hinata’s shoulders and biceps, watching as goosebumps raced down his arm. Watching the smaller boy shiver beneath him did… something … to Kei’s stomach. Interesting.
“Ah!” Hinata yelped, jerking away as Kei’s fingers glanced a little harder than he’d meant to over a particularly red patch of skin.
“Sorry,” Kei whispered before he could stop himself, quickly ghosting his fingertips over the area to make sure it was adequately covered. Satisfied he’d smoothed over all the burns on Hinata’s shoulders and upper back, Kei started rubbing the aloe over the rest of his back and sides for good measure. He found himself enthralled by the size of his hand over Hinata’s back. If he wanted to, he was sure his fingers could wrap almost all the way around his ribs and–
Hinata made a strangled noise as Kei’s fingers trailed over his side, twisting away from his touch once more.
“Sorry, did that hurt?” Kei asked, pulling his hands away and ignoring the heat rising across his face.
“Ah, well, no, not exactly,” Hinata panted, an awkward smile curling up around the corners of his mouth. “I guess I’m just pretty ticklish.”
“Oh.” Kei said dumbly. “Well. Sorry. I’ll be more careful.” He swallowed thickly around the frantic fluttering of his stomach up into his throat. What was getting into him?
“Your back and shoulders are pretty much done anyway. Do you want me to get your legs as well, or do you need a break first?”
Kei watched as Hinata gave his shoulders an experimental roll before pushing up onto his elbows. “Um, I don’t know,” he admitted, voice coming out in an uncharacteristically quiet rasp. “It doesn’t sting as much as I thought it would when you touch it, but my head is kind of really starting to hurt.”
Hinata’s soft admission sparked something like warm concern in Kei, a flickering, disgusting feeling blooming somewhere deep in his chest. He clamped down on it immediately, steering himself away from emotions he absolutely, under no circumstances, should not be having about a teammate, especially not one of the loudest, most obnoxious ones.
He schooled his features back into a comfortable, familiar look of tired aggravation and glared down his nose at Hinata. “Stupid. You’re probably dehydrated. I know you probably can’t help getting confused since you’re still kid-sized, but no one’s actually here to babysit you.”
Hinata only managed a tiny, disgruntled huff and a slight pout–a far cry from his usual fiery, if pathetically stupid, comebacks. He really must be crashing if he couldn’t even manage his customary idiotic screeching.
“I’ll go get some in a minute,” Hinata whined, only for his face to immediately crumple around an impressively large yawn.
“Ugh, hang on,” Kei groaned, heaving himself up to walk back to his futon. He grabbed an unopened water bottle from beside his pillow, and the small hand towel he’d used to wipe his hands clean when he’d put aloe on his own shoulders. He made quick work of wiping down both the chilled, sweating water bottle and his slimy hands before handing it over to Hinata.
Hinata made no move to take the bottle, simply staring up at Kei with skepticism and confusion clear in his otherwise bleary eyes.
“Hello? Earth to Hinata, you’re supposed to take it–I’m not holding it for you while you drink.” Kei shook the bottle a little in front of Hinata’s nose to emphasize his point.
A furious blush rose over Hinata’s already impressively pink cheeks, soothing Kei’s creeping anxiety as he pulled a familiar, spluttering reaction from his teammate.
“Stupid-shima! I know that!” He yelped, snatching the water from Kei’s outstretched hand. “You’re being so weird, I can go get my own water in a-” Whatever Hinata’s imminent protestation had been was cut short by yet another long, shuddering yawn.
Kei made a condescending noise in the back of his throat, crossing his arms over his chest. “Just shut up and drink it, Shrimp. You’re obviously about to pass out and I am not dealing with Suga in the morning if he thinks it’s my fault you can’t get out of bed because you were too stupid to drink enough water.”
Hinata continued glaring up at him, but tilted his head back to drink. He maintained eye contact with Kei as he pulled long draughts, water bottle crinkling as he drained half of it in one go. Kei understood perfectly well that Hinata’s actions were meant to convey his irritation at being bossed around, yet his hard gaze and heaving shoulders as he gasped for air communicated something else entirely to a part of Kei’s subconscious that he absolutely refused to acknowledge.
“ Tch, disgusting,” Kei said, wrinkling his nose in disdain. “If you puke I’m leaving you to lay in it.”
“Whatever,” Hinata griped, downing a few more gulps before slapping the bottle down by his pillow. He then held his hand back out, motioning toward the bottle of aloe just out of reach. “Just give me the gel so I can get my legs.”
“I don’t think so,” Kei said, quickly snatching up the bottle before Hinata could make a grab for it. “I don’t want your grubby little goblin hands on my stuff.” He snapped the cap back open, squeezing a significant amount of gel into his palm before setting the container aside and rubbing his hands together. “I managed your back without wanting to crawl out of my skin, I think I can handle finishing what I started.”
Hinata, clearly too fatigued to put up a fight, flopped back down onto his pillow with little more than a quiet noise of malcontent.
“Hmmm, good boy,” Kei hummed, ignoring the way his comment, meant to be degrading, tickled pleasantly at something behind his ribs. He instead focused on rubbing the warmed aloe against the bright red heat radiating from Hinata’s calves. Though he was a little riled up from bossing Hinata around, he still didn’t really want to cause him any undue pain, so he made sure to keep his touch light.
As with the gel on his arms, it seemed the aloe chilled Hinata, causing him to shiver once more under Kei’s fingertips. Goosebumps travelled all the way up his legs, a rather long expanse to take in as Kei suddenly noticed Hinata had been wearing nothing more than a short pair of briefs the whole time. He forced his gaze to stop at the hem of Hinata’s underwear, furiously beating back the sudden and confusing desire to let his eyes continue on to linger over the curve of Hinata’s backside.
Flustered and more than slightly unsettled, Kei quickly swiped his hands over the rest of Hinata’s burns, ignoring the now obvious fact that his fingers could oh so easily wrap entirely around his ankles.
“That should do it,” Kei said, clearing his throat as he yanked his hands away from Hinata’s body and grabbed for his hand towel. He pulled in a few deep breaths to calm his suddenly racing pulse, directing his gaze anywhere but at Hinata’s prone form in front of him. Locking eyes with the nearly empty water bottle, Kei gave a slight, certain nod as a clear, actionable means of quick escape presented itself.
“I’ll be right back,” he muttered, chucking the now almost-empty container of aloe into his bag and snatching up his wallet as he stalked out of the room. He barely took notice of the loud reprimanding coming from the bathroom as he walked by Noya and Tanaka getting chewed out by their captain. He was too focused on thinking about absolutely nothing at all beyond getting a fresh bottle of water from the vending machine by the stairwell. As he made his selection and waited for the machine, he maintained a steady internal mantra: He’s so annoying and I don’t even like him he’s so annoying and I don’t even like him he’s so annoying and I don’t even like him he’s so-
The loud thunk of a new water bottle hitting the bottom of the machine snapped Kei out of his trance, and he let himself believe the continued racing of his heart was solely attributed to being startled by the noise. He glanced down the hallway, just able to make out the shapes of what had to be Yamaguchi, Kageyama, and Ennoshita finishing up their cleaning duty. He sucked in another deep breath–comforted knowing his best friend would be back soon. He’d at least be able to pretend shortly that his panic was just anger at not getting a chance to read more of his book.
As he slipped back into the room everyone would be sleeping in, somehow still only occupied by Hinata, he took note of the steady rise and fall of the smaller boy’s back. Maybe he’d be asleep, and Kei could avoid-
“‘Sk’sh’ma?”
Kei’s heart flew back into overdrive at the muffled, garbled attempt at his name. Hinata was clearly well on his way to Snoozeville, but made an effort to lift his head up to look at Kei anyway.
“Yeah, what’s up?” Kei asked, moving quietly to set the fresh water by Hinata’s pillow. Maybe if he played his cards right Hinata would knock out any moment and he wouldn’t have to deal with him anymore, especially not in front of Yamaguchi. That boy could and would read into a situation like no other, and Kei simply did not have the energy left to adamantly and correctly explain to his best friend that absolutely nothing was going on.
“Thanks f’r the help,” Hinata mumbled, nuzzling his cheek against his pillow. Kei quickly averted his gaze to the ceiling. The warm tingles in his chest were definitely heartburn–he’d be sure to avoid those spicy noodles at dinner tomorrow.
“Sure, whatever. Don’t get used to it.” Kei murmured, crouching down. “Do you need anything else or am I finally free?”
Hinata made another series of sleepy, contented noises, mulling over Kei’s question. “D’nt think suh. Couldja just help me with the blanket?”
Kei scrunched his nose in distaste, focusing on how gross it was to want a blanket over a bunch of sticky aloe gel instead of the feeling of his insides turning to goo. He gently tugged the light sheet out from where it was crumpled under Hinata’s feet, pulling it up to just under the beginning of the burns along his upper back.
“How’s that?”
Hinata hummed happily, snuggling further down into his futon. Kei clicked his tongue, glad at least it seemed he was no longer needed. He was stopped in his hasty retreat, however, as Hinata opened his mouth once more. Why did the little guy have to be so stubborn ? Could he do a guy a favor just once and let go of his freakish amount of energy to sleep and give Kei a moment of peace?
“I mean it,” Hinata mumbled, “Thanks. You didn’t hafta.”
Kei humphed. “I kind of did. Did you see Daichi five minutes ago?”
Hinata let out a tiny, breathy chuckle, bringing one of his hands up by his face to clutch at his pillow. Kei absolutely did not imagine that little hand clinging to his shirt as he settled down to sleep on his chest.
“Still, thanks. I’ll be sure to getcha s’more aloe when we get home. I can-” Hinata paused around the longest, breathiest yawn he’d managed all evening. “I can pay you back f’r the water in the mornin’.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Kei said softly, watching as Hinata’s lashes fluttered against his cheeks. “Just get some sleep and stop bothering me, that’s repayment enough.”
Hinata might have started to giggle, but it was probably just a tiny snore. The boy was finally, blessedly, out cold.
Kei flopped onto his own futon and pulled his blankets up around his shoulders just as the rest of the first years and Ennoshita returned to grab their things for the showers. He hissed at them to shut up before they woke the gremlin and made a show of slapping his glasses down by his bag and folding his pillow up over his ears. He was simply fed up with the constant noise when all he wanted was some rest , and any hint of pink the others caught rising over his cheeks could be attributed to nothing more than a little sunburn.
He squeezed his eyes shut to block out the knowing smirk coming from Yamaguchi, who seemed to piece together all there was to know about Kei’s sunburn in record time. He stifled a groan into his pillow, desperately plotting out ways to avoid Yamaguchi until he had a chance to take Tanaka and Noya back up on their offer to bury him alive in the sand. That is, assuming the idiots were considerate enough to survive Daichi’s wrath at least until tomorrow so they could do him the favor of taking him out with them.