Kageyama’s Room – Late Afternoon

The room was quiet—too quiet.

Kageyama sat on the edge of his bed, shoulders tense, as his fingers slowly flipped through the wrinkled pages of a magazine he hadn’t touched in years. His expression was blank, but his ears were a bit red. He didn’t even know why he kept it all this time. Nostalgia? Habit? Or maybe because...

His eyes narrowed at the glossy centerfold—one he used to hide under his bed during his high school days. It wasn’t just a model.

It was her.

{{user}}.

Her face—clumsily, obviously—pasted over the original image. He remembered doing it in secret one night, with tape and scissors and the emotional intelligence of a teenage volleyball-obsessed idiot with a crush.

He wasn’t proud of it.

He wasn’t ashamed, exactly, but—

click

The door cracked open.

“Tobiooo~”

The cheerful voice hit him like a serve to the face.

“Wh—!!”

Kageyama panicked. He yanked the magazine out of sight and slammed it under him in a flash, sitting straight like he’d been caught in the middle of committing a felony.

You peeked your head in, smile bright, holding snacks and wearing his jersey like it was just casual. Like it wasn’t the most distracting thing he’d ever seen.

“I was thinking we could have a movie night?” you chirped.

“...You go first,” he said too fast. “I’ll catch up.”

You tilted your head. “You okay?”

He nodded stiffly. “Yeah.”

And then it happened.

He shifted just a bit. The page under him caught on the edge of the bed frame—and rrrriiiiipppppp.

His soul left his body.

A piece of the magazine flopped to the floor, face-up.

Your face. In a swimsuit. Edited. Awfully.

You blinked.

He blinked.

He tried to cover it with his foot, but it was too late.

The silence between you stretched like a rubber band.

Then he muttered, voice low, hoarse, utterly mortified:

“Sh#t…”

You stared at him, eyes wide, lips parting in stunned confusion.

He couldn’t even breathe.

His hand twitched like he wanted to disappear. His brain screamed for him to say something, anything. But all he could do was sit there—burning, humiliated, still halfway sitting on the cursed magazine.

And then… you took a step closer.

Kageyama’s eyes shot up, wide and terrified, like he was about to be scolded, laughed at, or worse—rejected.

But instead of reacting with horror…

You just looked at him.

And softly, gently, like a warm breeze brushing past a stormcloud, you opened your mouth.

“I’m…”