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Shouyou’s first streak was a birthday gift.
Izumi and Kouji had offered to take him to the pool to celebrate. He had just turned fifteen, and he loved swimming almost as much as he loved volleyball. It was the perfect way to spend a hot summer day.
Shouyou spent the whole afternoon splashing his friends and doing handstands under the water. He only got out of the water for cannonballs and belly flops. After about a full five hours of swimming, though, his friends seemed to tire out.
“Hey, Shou-chan. I’m starving. Let’s go get dinner, yeah? Our treat!” Izumi offered, leaning over the side of the pool with a towel for Shouyou. Kouji snorted at Izumi’s side, a beach towel draped over his head.
“Maybe your treat,” Kouji muttered under his breath.
Izumi elbowed him in the ribs. “Our treat,” he repeated with a pointed glare.
Meanwhile, Shouyou climbed out of the pool and grabbed the towel Izumi had brought over for him. He dried his arms and legs without anyone making a fuss, but when he finished drying his hair, Izumi and Kouji gasped.
“Shou-chan!” Izumi yelped. “Oh, Shou-chan, you’re all grown up!”
Shouyou stopped drying his face long enough to look up at his friends. “What?”
Kouji grabbed his wrist. “Shouyou, can I give a table speech at your wedding? I promise I won’t be mean; I’ll be super great about it. I already have ideas! It’ll be cute enough to make you cry, I swear.”
Shouyou pulled his hand away and wrapped his towel around his shoulders. “What are you guys talking about?” he questioned. His hair was still dripping wet, but for some reason, Izumi and Kouji were staring at it with heart eyes.
“You’ll see, hold on,” Izumi said, whipping out his phone. He took a picture of Shouyou without warning. Shouyou blinked –dazed- as Izumi and Kouji beamed down at Izumi’s phone. Eventually, he turned it so Shouyou could see. “Look,” he gushed.
Shouyou stared down at the phone, looking for something out of place. Eventually, he spotted it. His hand went up to his hair. “I have a streak?” he asked, running his hand over his head and trying to feel for something different. Izumi directed his hand to a specific lock of hair and Shouyou felt his heart seize up. “I have a streak?!”
“You’re going to meet your soul mate in a year. That’s crazy!” Izumi marveled. He was more emotional than Shouyou was, tears welling up in his eyes. Izumi rested a hand over his heart. “Aw, Shou-chan, you’re going to meet your soul mate on your birthday.”
Shouyou stared down at his picture on Izumi’s phone. The black streak was well hidden under his orange mop of hair, but it was there. Shouyou felt it blindly, trying not to feel sick. This was so sudden; he wasn’t sure if he was ready. Shouyou felt nauseous. He felt like crying.
But he also felt like singing.
He had a soul mate. In one year, he’d have his perfect partner. They’d be amazing together, Shouyou was sure of it. Of course, the only thing Shouyou knew about them was that he or she had black hair, but the promise that there was someone out there for him was enough.
“This might be the best present ever,” Shouyou said, his eyes crinkled up with a smile. “I have to go look in a mirror. I need a mirror. Let’s go find a mirror!”
“Okay, but then dinner,” Kouji demanded. “I’m so hungry, I think my stomach is eating itself.”
Izumi arched an eyebrow. “And what about treating Shouyou? Because I’m not about to pay all by myself when you haven’t gotten him a present yet,” he said, looking at Kouji expectantly. Kouji rolled his eyes.
“Are you kidding? He just got his first streak. I’ll pay for his whole meal.”
More streaks started to come in soon after that. Every time Shouyou looked in the mirror, there seemed to be another one. He kind of looked like a tiger, what with the orange and black stripes. It was awesome.
Until strangers started commenting on it.
“Wow! I’ve never heard of soul mates finding each other in elementary school! What grade are you in?” an old woman asked Shouyou. He was at the local convenience store buying popsicles with Izumi and Kouji after school. It was obvious that she had noticed his streak-filled hair and mistook his age for someone much younger. People had always got Shouyou’s age wrong due to his height, but it wasn’t until he started getting his soul mate’s hair color that it was truly brought to his attention.
“Actually, I’m fifteen,” Shouyou corrected.
The old woman at least had the decency to look embarrassed, and she patted Shouyou’s shoulder apologetically. “Oh... Well, good for you,” she said. Shouyou grunted before going back to browsing the Gari Gari Kun flavors, praying for a grapefruit or kiwi one. He needed some ice cream to fix his sorrows.
Everyone kept saying how crazy it was that someone so young was about to find their soul mate. Everyone mistook him for an elementary school student. It was frustrating, especially when Shouyou was a few months away from high school. He was a teenager; it wasn’t weird that he was about to meet the love of his life. It wasn’t exactly normal (most people met their soul mates in college or at their first jobs), but it wasn’t uncommon.
Shouyou paid for his ice cream and covered Kouji when he was short on cash. On the walk home, a mom with her kids pointed him out.
“Look! That boy isn’t much older than you, and he’s about to find his soul mate!” she told her oldest son. He looked like he was eight years old.
“Don’t let it get to you, Shouyou. You should be excited!” Izumi said when Shouyou’s face fell. Honestly, he sort of wanted to lie down on the sidewalk and never get up.
Kouji nodded. “Yeah, you get to meet your soul mate in less than a year. No one can ruin that for you. It’ll be the best day of your life, I promise.” Typically, Kouji didn’t try to cheer Shouyou up. That was usually Izumi’s job. The fact that he was trying at all said that Shouyou must look really depressed.
“Yeah, I guess you guys are right,” Shouyou said with a frown, but that didn’t stop him from feeling embarrassed. He pulled up his hood. He didn’t really want anyone else to see his hair at the moment.
Shouyou frowned in front of the mirror, realizing how ridiculous he looked. As much as he loved his tiger hair at first, now he felt like an idiot. He was too short to have such crazy hair. His face was too round, and his cheeks were too big. He looked so stupid.
If his soul mate looked anything like Shouyou thought he might, then he undoubtedly looked gorgeous. Shouyou liked tall, pretty boys. His soul mate was probably so attractive that the orange streaks somehow managed to suit him. He probably looked tall, and mature, and handsome. Meanwhile, Shouyou looked like a dumb little kid.
Shouyou’s face screwed up as he looked at himself in the mirror. This simply wouldn’t do. He wasn’t going to be the weird-looking one in this relationship.
Something competitive kicked up in Shouyou’s chest. Sure, his soul mate was probably hot. He probably was athletic and attractive and amazing. But when they met, he was going to look just as silly as Shouyou did. Shouyou was going to make sure of it.
“Shou-chan, I feel like this is a bad idea,” Izumi said, sitting with Shouyou at the hairdresser. He was currently waiting to get the dye rinsed out of his hair. “What colors did you pick, again?”
“Hot pink and neon green,” Shouyou replied, not looking up from the magazine he was reading. He was taking a quiz to find out what kind of dog he would be. Shouyou tossed the magazine down angrily when it told him he was a Pomeranian. Shouyou hated how small and cutesy everyone made him out to be. He was fifteen, for goodness sake.
Izumi frowned. “Yeah, I’m sorry, but that sounds insane.”
“No, it’s perfect,” Shouyou replied. “Because even if my soul mate can pull off orange streaks, there’s no way he can get away with this.”
“But you don’t know that he can pull off orange.”
“Oh, he can,” Shouyou growled, his hands balling up into fists. Whenever he thought about how good his soul mate probably looked, he couldn’t help but get frustrated. “He definitely can.”
“Shouyou, I love you, but I think you might be obsessing a little. You do that sometimes,” Izumi said lightly, but Shouyou ignored him. Instead, he flipped to the dog quiz again, determined to get a different result.
He lied on all of his answers just to get Doberman. Now that was a manly dog. His soul mate was probably a Doberman, and the thought alone made Shouyou feel like dying.
When the dye was eventually rinsed out of his hair and it was all blow-dried and fluffy, the black streaks crept back through his fringe. Shouyou huffed out a sigh. He looked twice as crazy as before. The neon and the pink didn’t go together at all, and the added black made him look absolutely bizarre. At least his soul mate probably looked just as crazy, if not worse.
Two days later, the black streaks turned highlighter yellow and dark blue.
To make matters worse the streaks had changed color in the middle of his school’s weekly assembly. All the kids around Shouyou had started laughing at the bizarre rainbow his head had turned into. He couldn’t even blame them, his hair looked terrible.
Shouyou was pissed.
His soul mate was a jerk for doing this to him. And yes, Shouyou was the one to change his hair color first, but at least the pink and green kind of went together. With the black added in, it looked a little like watermelon or strawberries.
However, the deep blue and bright yellow didn’t have the same color value at all, and they clashed terribly. They weren’t even complimentary. These colors looked way worse, and they looked horrendous with the pink and green.
Shouyou was stomping to his classroom after the assembly when he realized: his soul mate was winning.
Somehow, his soul mate managed to make them collectively look twice as insane as before. It felt like a challenge. Shouyou should hadn’t realized that dying his hair would start a war, but he was ready for it. His soul mate was going down.
This was officially a competition, and Shouyou had no intention of losing.
Shouyou’s eyes shift when he’s six months away from meeting his soul mate. His right eye is now midnight blue.
For a second, Shouyou couldn’t help but feel excited because he loves blue eyes. He had spent so much time picturing how handsome his soul mate probably was despite his awful-colored hair; it was good to know that his eyes lived up to Shouyou’s expectations.
Shouyou was enamored for all of ten minutes before he realized how the dark blue streaks in his hair made his right eye color pop, and then he was angry all over again. His soul mate probably dyed his hair blue to make his eyes stand out. While it must have looked great on him, it made Shouyou look crazy with one eye being a dull brown. Never before had Shouyou hated his eye color quite so much.
Fortunately, Shouyou had been waiting for this day.
He reached into his medicine cabinet and pulled out a specialty set of colored contacts. These ones were designed to make his pupils look like green cat eyes, and they looked horrible paired with the fading neon green streaks in Shouyou’s hair.
They were perfect.
Shouyou struggled for a moment to stick in the contacts. When he finally managed, the left one stayed prominent, but the right one faded away so that the blue color of his soul mate’s eye stood out. Shouyou’s nose twitched. Once again, he looked crazy with one eye green and crescent shaped and the other blue and circular. However, his soul mate probably looked just as nuts, and that was enough for Shouyou.
The duet stage hits Shouyou like a truck . He nearly threw his bento across the classroom when he started singing “Promiscuous” by Nelly in the middle of lunch. How did his soul mate learn the English to this awful song? And why did Shouyou have to have Timbaland’s part?
“I bet your soul mate hates singing, and he’s just doing this to make you look like an idiot,” Kouji commented, taking a big bite of his rice. Shouyou glared, unable to respond because he was too busy singing the chorus to the song.
Things were starting to get out of hand. One of his eyes had a knock out contact in –a black X surrounded by white so that he looked like a dead cartoon character- and the other looked like a cat’s. His hair was a mixture of faded pinks and greens and re-dyed blues and yellows. He was also about as tall as a nine-year-old and was currently sitting at his desk rapping in English.
Shouyou laid his face down on the table as he sang, and Izumi rubbed his back comfortingly. “I warned you about dying your hair. I told you that you were being insane, and now look at you. It’s like you’ve gone crazy.”
Shouyou shook Izumi’s hand away, deciding that the other boy was no longer comforting.
The sooner he met his soul mate, the sooner he could give him a piece of his mind.
“I thought you were supposed to like your soul mate, but I think I might hate mine,” Shouyou complained to his mother. He had just started at his new high school, and naturally, no one wanted to be friends with the crazy-looking kid with mismatched contacts and crazy hair.
His mom frowned. “If it bothers you so much, why don’t you just take out your contacts and dye your hair back? I’m sure your soul mate would do the same. They’re probably just as frustrated as you are,” she pointed out.
Shouyou smacked his hand on the table, his water glass shaking and threating to spill all over his dinner plate. “Because that would be like admitting defeat! I can’t lose, mom.”
His mother laughed under her breath. “No, you certainly can’t.”
Shouyou glared. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing, nothing,” his mom promised waving her hands in the air to placate him. She took a bite of her saba misoni. “But you know, it’s probably good that your soul mate is just as competitive as you are. I think you two will have a lot of fun playing games, and racing, and one-upping each other... Who knows, maybe he plays volleyball and you guys can play one-on-one!” his mother exclaimed, and Shouyou rolled his eyes.
“No, I will not have fun with my soul mate, mom. He’s an uptight jerk. I can already tell,” he muttered, poking at his food with his chopsticks. He wasn’t hungry. His soul mate had painted his nails to be twice as ugly as the ones Shouyou had painted a few dayss ago. Now his nails were pastel purple with orange star stickers every other finger and brown with black stripes in between.
His birthday was right around the corner, but Shouyou wasn’t sure if he was looking forward to it or not. On the one hand, he was excited to meet his soul mate so he could go back to looking normal. On the other hand, he was kind of scared that his soul mate would be a jerk. Was he making Shouyou look crazy just because it was a stupid battle they’d started? Or was he doing it to embarrass Shouyou and make him upset? Shouyou was sensitive; he didn’t think he could handle it if his soul mate actually was mean.
His mom didn’t seem to share the same concerns. “Oh, Shouyou, you’re going to love him, I promise,” she said. “I’m excited for you to meet him. I miss your orange hair; it’ll be good when it turns back.”
“Yeah,” Shouyou said distractedly, running a hand over his head. Hopefully, he would feel better after meeting his soul mate. Until then, he would just have to pray that fate had someone nice and just a little over-competitive in store for him.
“Hinata, we’re finally going to see what you actually look like!” Yamaguchi exclaimed, twisting around on the bus so he could look at Shouyou. “What color did you say your natural hair color is, again?”
“Orange,” Shouyou answered, trying to quell his anxiety. Today was the day. They were going to a practice match against Aobajōsai’s team. At first, Shouyou had been thrilled to hear that his first practice match was going to be on his birthday, but then he realized that his soul mate probably played for their rival team.
Of course he did. Shouyou should have expected that from the start, given how annoying his soul mate had been so far.
“That’s so weird,” Nishinoya said, leaning into the aisle to talk to Shouyou better. “And what color are your eyes?”
Shouyou scrubbed at his nose, feeling like he was going to throw up at any second. He wondered if his soul mate could feel how nauseous he was. He had been able to feel how grumpy and lonely his soul mate had been lately, but he didn’t know if things like nausea transferred over. It would serve him right if it did. “Um... like... brown,” he answered. “Also, we might need to pull the bus over because I’m... I’m...”
“You’re...?” Tanaka prompted from the seat next to him, but Shouyou never answered. Instead, he vomited all over the second year’s pants.
Tanaka screamed in anguish, and Shouyou fell limply onto the backseat. This was supposed to be the best day of his life: he was meeting his soul mate on his birthday. But all he felt now was anxiety and nausea.
Things only got worse when his soul mate started to sing duets, just to bother him. Shouyou almost started crying when he was forced to sing Sandy’s part to “You’re the One that I Want.” This duet thing was a travesty to the soul mate universe. He felt like dying.
Shouyou snuck into Aobojōsai’s gym, determined to see his soul mate first. He still felt sick, and he definitely felt nervous, but mostly he was furious about having to sing Grease for half of the bus ride. He was ready to give his soul mate a piece of his mind.
It didn’t take long for him to spot his soul mate. He was doubled over in a huddle with his team, but Shouyou could spot his multi-colored hair from a mile away.
Shouyou scoffed when he realized that of course –of course- he was tall, just like he thought he would be.
“Hey, that must be him,” Yamaguchi said, nudging Shouyou out from his hiding spot behind Daichi. Shouyou jumped at least six feet in the air, Yamaguchi startled him so badly, and heads turned when he squealed girlishly in surprise.
Shouyou watched as his soul mate’s ridiculous X and oval shaped eyes turned to stare at him.
His face twisted up with anger. His soul mate looked crazy, but he didn’t look half as crazy as Shouyou. It made him feel like screaming, and he marched over to Aobajōsai’s side of the net to do exactly that. However, his soul mate beat him to it.
“You must be the dumbass who turned me into this,” he said as Shouyou approached.
Shouyou floundered for a moment, his jaw opening and closing like a fish, before he managed to choke out a response. “You’re calling me a dumbass? You’re such an idiot!” Shouyou exclaimed, all of his thoughts about his soul mate being a jerk confirmed.
However, with their first words spoken to each other, the dye and bleach in their hair started to melt away. The other boy’s hair color went back to black from the root to the tip, and Shouyou blinked rapidly as he felt his contacts start to dissolve in his eyes. It felt gross, but not as gross as his nails rejecting the chipped polish he had put on them. Shouyou frowned down at his hands for a moment. He couldn’t remember who had painted what colors, but it was nice to see his nails return to normal.
When he looked up, his soul mate’s eyes were midnight blue again. Shouyou had forgotten what the color looked like after months of stupid contacts. His haircut was goofy, but it didn’t matter. Shouyou felt his heart skip a beat.
He was gorgeous.
“Wait a minute, you’re so-“ Shouyou didn’t have a good way to finish the sentence. Instead he reached out tentatively and ran a hand through the other boy’s hair. His soul mate bit his lip, blushing.
“I mean, you too, you’re...” his soul mate trailed off. “Hey, what’s your name?” he asked, his voice sounding much softer than it did moments ago. He didn’t seem angry anymore. Strangely enough, Shouyou wasn’t angry either. It was almost as if he had completely forgotten about how ridiculous he had looked all year, and all of his angry thoughts had been written over with thoughts about his soul mate’s shining eyes and soft hair.
Shouyou pulled his hand back awkwardly, realizing that he probably shouldn’t touch someone he just met, regardless of whether or not they were supposed to be paired together. “Um... It’s Hinata. Hinata Shouyou.”
“Hinata Shouyou,” the other boy repeated, as if testing the name out on his tongue. He looked flustered but happy, if the smile that managed to creep onto is face for a second had anything to say about it. It disappeared quickly, but Shouyou had a feeling he still felt that way. “I’m Kageyama Tobio.”
“Kageyama Tobio? That’s... that’s a nice name,” Shouyou squeaked. That was such a nice name. Everything about Kageyama was cute. Shouyou felt like he was melting. At any second, he would turn to a puddle on the ground. He had thought his soul mate would be attractive, but not like this–nothing like this ever crossed his brain. This was more than Shouyou could have hoped for.
He suddenly felt incredibly self-conscious. He looked up at his fringe and saw that it was orange again, but it wasn’t enough. How could Shouyou hope to compete when his soul mate was so drop-dead gorgeous. Shouyou shied away, but Kageyama caught his wrist. “Hey, where are you going?”
“I don’t- I’m-“
“Don’t leave! You’re too cute.” Kageyama covered his mouth in shock immediately after speaking, like he hadn’t meant to say that out loud. Shouyou was too flustered to think about what that meant.
“I’m cute?” Shouyou asked, surprised. He hadn’t expected to hear that, not when Kageyama was obviously so much more attractive.
Kageyama nodded sheepishly. “Yeah. Geez, all this time with the weird hair, and eyes, and nails... I thought you’d be like... obnoxious or something, but you’re so... you’re so tiny.” He didn’t seem to be making fun of Shouyou when he said it. In fact, he seemed so overwhelmed that he couldn’t even look at Shouyou. Instead, he stared off to the side awkwardly.
Shouyou was confused before he realized that it actually made a good bit of sense. Of course he would be just Kageyama’s type, they were supposed to be perfect for each other.
A smile spread across his face. “I thought you’d be a jerk, but here you are complimenting me.”
“Well, I mean... Yeah. You’re cuter than I could have hoped for,” Kageyama said stiltedly, like it pained him to admit. He seemed so awkward, and for some reason, that made him all the more adorable to Shouyou.
“No, you’re cuter than I could have hoped for.”
Kageyama squinted at him. “Well, you’re the cutest.”
Shouyou smirked as his competitive nature got the better of him. “No, you’re the cutest,” he argued.
“Okay, that’s enough. I’m going to throw up,” Aobajōsai’s captain interrupted. Shouyou was pretty sure he could remember Daichi saying his name was Oikawa. “We have a game to play, Tobio-chan. Stop being a dork, and get back in this team huddle.”
“Still the cutest,” Shouyou said quickly, running away before Kageyama could respond. He wasn’t sure who won the stupidest looking contest, but at least he won the who was cuter argument (if even by default).
Bonus scene:
Shouyou smiled when he saw Kageyama on the opposite side of the street. He waved excitedly. They were meeting up for their third date, and Shouyou was beyond thrilled to be seeing Kageyama again. He hadn’t expected to hit it off with the other boy as much as he did, but honestly, Shouyou couldn’t make it through an hour without talking about, talking to, or texting with Kageyama. He was perfect, just like everyone said he would be.
Shouyou was especially excited because Kageyama had been talking about switching schools. Apparently, he didn’t fit in with his current volleyball team very well due to some trouble in middle school. Shouyou would be more than elated if Kageyama came to Karasuno. Then he’d be able to be with Kageyama all of the time.
For now, though, they were meeting up at the science center. Kageyama was only a few doors away from the building, and something clenched in Shouyou’s chest as he realized the other boy would probably beat him there.
Shouyou started sprinting.
Kageyama noticed him running to the science center and his pace picked up as well. They must have looked ridiculous running at full speed to try to make it to the entrance first, but Shouyou was getting used to looking crazy because of Kageyama. They ran so fast, they almost crashed into each other when they reached the door.
“Okay, okay, that one’s a draw,” Kageyama said, catching Shouyou before he fell over.
“Agreed,” Shouyou panted. Kageyama hadn’t had to run nearly as fast as he did. But it didn’t matter who ran harder, it just mattered who got there first. “We need a tie breaker.”
“We can have speed reading contests for all the little plaques inside,” Kageyama suggested.
“No, it would be too easy to cheat,” Shouyou replied. Kageyama could say he was done reading when he hadn’t even read a single word. Even if Kageyama had been nothing but honorable so far, Shouyou didn’t trust him.
“You’re right,” Kageyama said. “Wanna do a real fast push-up contest?”
Shouyou’s brown eyes flashed excitedly. He ran a hand through his orange hair, looking up at his handsome soul mate with a smirk. “You’re on.”