volleyball-crow:

Among the incredibly unexpected things that eventually happen at Karasuno, what is probably the weirdest of them is the strange friendship that develops between Kageyama and Tsukishima.

No one is really sure how it happens. It must have been gradual, evolving by stages maybe, so no one notices until one day Nishinoya points out, “Isn’t it really weird that Kageyama and Tsukishima are sitting together over there and world war three hasn’t started yet?”

Hinata, who is Kageyama’s unquestionable best friend, is more preoccupied with drinking every last drop of his post-practice juice and replies airily, “Yeah, they do that sometimes.”

Ennoshita-san frowns. “They do?”

“Yeah,” Hinata says, “Sometimes they do their you’re-pathetic-NO-YOU’RE-pathetic routine, and sometimes they sit together and… do that. Whatever it is. I’m not exactly sure.”

Basically, at some point Tsukishima and Kageyama subtly went from teammates-with-difficulties to subtly-friends. They yell and argue and fight just about the same they always have, just a lot less often, and sometimes they can be found quietly sharing the same space. If Kageyama forgets his towel and Tsukishima notices, he’ll lend him a spare – something Yamaguchi says is a recent addition to Tsukishima’s packing practices. If Tsukishima is out of tape for his fingers, a new roll will spontaneously appear in front of him – which Hinata says is the most hilarious thing to watch, because Kageyama apparently goes out of his way to pretend he’s not doing it.

More: according to Yamaguchi, if anyone in their class – or anywhere in Tsukishima’s hearing, really – says anything remotely negative about Kageyama, Tsukishima quickly glares them into submission.

And in view of this unexpected revelation, Kageyama’s weird behaviour during the last joint training camp makes a lot more sense – the way he’d hovered around the “3rd gym group”, as they’re called, and how he’d stalked around them looking vaguely threatening. “He was making sure no one was picking on Tsukishima,” Hinata explains, looking utterly unbothered by this extremely exotic behaviour.

“How long has this been going on?” Nishinoya asks, still looking a little scandalized.

“Ehhh. I’m not sure. Hinata?” Yamaguchi sends a questioning look Hinata’s way.

“No clue!” Hinata chirps, and gets up to go get another juice from the vending machine.

“Seriously?” Tanaka’s voice is going a little shrill with the shock. “Yesterday they sounded like they were about to punch each other!”

“Yeah, they do that too sometimes,” Yamaguchi calmly says, to everyone’s shocked stares. He hurries to add, “Oh, they’re not really serious about the arguments anymore. It’s just how they do things. I think they have fun like that.”

There’s a moment of silence, and then Kinoshita voices what is going through everyone’s minds.

“They’re so weird.”

I love this on so many levels!