Chapter Text
Nishinoya whined. It was a high-pitched sound from the back of his throat that vaguely sounded like a sick puppy. His hands were above his head and pressed into a cold window, and with his whine he pressed them harder against the glass. He glanced at the analog clock to his right.
Noya then realized that he couldn’t read analog clocks. He glanced up at his left wrist to only then remember his digital watch had broken two months ago. He let out an even louder, higher-pitched whine.
“It’s one-thirty, Noya.” Daichi said, somehow able to know what Noya wanted without even having to look at him, as Daichi was currently preoccupied with sketching out a few designs to put on display once he was finished.
“Thanks Daichi.” he mumbled, banging his head against the glass window once with a large thunk.
“...What time is it now?”
“Two minutes since the last time you asked.” This time Kageyama replied, clicking the pen in his hand so fast and holding it so tight it was a wonder the pen didn’t explode right there in his hand.
“So that’s….”
“One-thirty-two, you imbecile.”
“Don’t call your elder an imbecile!”
“You’re one year older than me, you are not my elder.”
“Isn’t he technically our elder?” All heads turned to Yamaguchi (well really only two since Daichi was still at work sketching and Tanaka was arguing silently with a mop) who paused in his sweeping and was now trying to maintain eye contact with two people at once.
“Yamaguchi, I’m bumping you up to favorite kohai.” Noya said with a giant grin and a thumbs up. Though the thumbs up didn’t really work, his hand was still up on the glass of the window and he didn’t take it down to flash his thumb at his new favorite kohai so it’s fairly plausible that Yamaguchi didn’t see it at all.
Kageyama just scoffed and glared the other way.
Yamaguchi looked really happy. Then it dawned on him that he wasn’t already the favorite kohai in the first place. Oh. He went back to sweeping.
Silence engulfed the approximate area of the five boys, er, men, with everyone going about their own business. And by that I mean three people doing actual work, one about to throw down with a mop, and another wistfully staring out the window at the bookshop across the street.
“What time is it again?”
No one replied to the poor, poor spikey headed boy.
“I said, what time is it?”
This time he met the silence with another whine. And then another. And another. And finally he whined so loud that Tsukishima from the neighboring flower shop came marching in, anger in his eyes.
“Will you shut up for ten goddamned seconds, some people actually have customers and are trying to focus.”
“Maybe you could focus if you actually had your glasses on.” Noya mumbled, resting his head back against the window with a small thud. He had a point though, currently Tsukishima’s glasses were hanging on his bright yellow apron, instead on his face, where they should be. He sent a glare both to Nishinoya and Kageyama (just ‘cause he could).
“Yeah, now get back to your precious little customers at your cute lil flower shop already.” Tanaka said in a mocking, slightly babyish, tone.
Tsukishima just rolled his eyes.
“At least we have customers, unlike some places.”
Now this time every head turned to him, including Daichi.
“What did you say, you little punk?!”
Which was funny because it was Tanaka who said that and Tsukishima was clearly much taller than him.
“You wanna go! I bet you wanna go! Put ‘em up! Put ‘em up!” Tanaka took a fist full of sunny yellow apron and pulled his face into a disturbing mix of terror and terrifying, as only Tanaka can do. Tsukishima actually looked like he was going to hit him, when Suga, bright apron and all, came flying in through the door.
Again, everyone paused. Time stopped. They all knew that Suga could be the most scary of them all when he was worked up. But all he did was merely glance at the scene in front of him.
“Oh, Daichi are those some new designs you’re working on?”
Time slowly started up again, with new glances being thrown in every direction.
Tanaka and Tsukishima both muttered vulgar comments at each other, Suga was trying to ignore the situation entirely by making pleasant conversation with Daichi, Daichi was grateful, Yamaguchi was trying to calm Tsuki down, Kageyama looked like he really didn’t want to be there, and Noya was still staring out the window, entire body pressed against the now warm glass. After approximately fifty-six seconds of the uncomfortable, mostly quiet atmosphere, Noya opened his mouth, drew in a deep breath, and was about to let out another one of his famous, you guessed it, whines, when a flash of orange and yellow interrupted him.
“Suga-san! There’s this guy trying to buy flowers, but he didn’t know what kind he wanted, and even after I showed him all the flowers we had he still didn’t know what to get and he’s stuttering a lot and is really nervous and big and tall and Ennoshita thinks he’s going to steal something, which is stupid because who steals from a flower shop? But anyway he wanted me to come get you so I did and wow it’s really tense in here.”
Everyone was now staring at Hinata. He blinked a couple of times.
“What? Did you not hear me? I can say it again-” Kageyama jumped up and clamped a hand over the redheads mouth.
“Don’t you dare repeat all that!” He hissed. Hinata said something that was garbled by the hand in front of him and, once he realized no one could understand him because of that hand, he licked it. To which Kageyama pulled away with a shout, and looked ready to commit murder.
That was the start of it all.
Tsukishima made a comment on how stupid they looked, both boys jumping to defend their pride (“Kageyama looks stupider than me!” “No, you look more stupid, you idiot!).
Tanaka felt it was his place to protect his underclassman by taking on the underclassman who made fun of them. But Yamaguchi was in front of Tsukishima, trying to both hold back laughter and scold him, and received the punch instead. It only hit his shoulder, not even all that hard, but when he flinched and looked back at Tanaka, fist still in the air, guilty as charged, all Yamaguchi had to do was mutter, “Ow,” and Tanaka was a dead man.
Yamaguchi muttered, “Ow.”
Tanaka was dead meat.
Except Tsukishima never put on his glasses and when he made a move, he slid where Tanaka was previously mopping, right onto his butt.
“I’m going to kill you!” He lunged for the poor dead piece of meat that was Tanaka from his position on the floor.
Yamaguchi was still trying to calm him down, Tanaka ran for his life, Hinata and Kageyama were still fighting, Suga had a death grip on Daichi’s chair, Daichi himself looked like he was about to burst a blood vessel, and Nishinoya was still looking out the goddamned window.
Noya finally let the whine he had been holding in out into the mix of chaos going on behind him, and that was the last straw.
“EVERYBODY SHUT UP!”
Everyone presently stopped (again) and looked up in fear of Daichi’s wrath.
All of a sudden, to try and prevent one more person who wanted to kill him, Tanaka piped up, “None of this would have ever happened if Noya wasn’t head over heels, all lovey-dovey over some garbage-thug-hippie-drug-dealer who works across the street!”
And because fate is a pain in the ass, that garbage-thug-hippie-drug-dealer who works across the street just so happened to be exiting the flower shop and was walking past the tattoo parlor when he stopped to take in the scene before him.
It didn’t help that Noya was staring right at him, red as a beet.
He blinked a couple of times, Noya blinked back at him.
He managed to look down, dart his eyes every which way nervously, and walked, with some struggle, back up the street.
Noya hung his head.
“...Someone please kill me already.”