never let kageyama and hinata cook ever again
first haikyuu fic kinda nervous.
~4K words. inspired by real life events
The first thing Daichi noticed was that everyone was already seated.
That, in itself, was unsettling.
Normally, getting the Karasuno volleyball team to sit down at the same time was comparable to herding sheep without a sheepdog or a shepherd. Hinata was usually bouncing around the room, a significant volley of “Boke!” following him around. Nishinoya and Tanaka were arguing about something completely unrelated to volleyball, and Tsukishima looked like he’d genuinely rather to be anywhere else.
Today? There was silence. Everyone was sitting perfectly still.
“What…What’s going on?” Daichi asked slowly, setting his bag down.
Eight pairs of eyes turned towards him. Then, in eerie synchronisation, they all looked at the folding table in the center of the gym. There were lunch boxes. One in front of every seat.
Daichi blinked. “Who—who made lunch?”
The room stayed silent for another heartbeat.
Shoyo Hinata practically exploded, throwing both hands into the air like he’d won nationals.
Beside him, Kageyama stood with his arms crossed, looking far too proud of himself. “We cooked,” he announced.
Daichi stared, life flashing before his eyes. “You…what?”
“We cooked,” Kageyama repeated.
“As in,” Suga said carefully. “They made every single thing on this table.”
Daichi looked down. There was rice, egg rolls, vegetables and grilled fish.
“…It doesn’t look bad,” Asahi admitted.
“It doesn’t,” Yamaguchi agreed.
Tsukishima made a noncommittal noise that could’ve meant literally anything.
Hinata beamed. “I told you it’d look good!”
“’Look?’” Ennoshita repeated.
“’Look’?” Kinoshita whispered, sounding faint.
Daichi looked around the room again. No one had touched their food. Not even Nishinoya. That was alarming. Nishinoya would eat basically anything if he had the chance—hell, he’d probably eat the meteorites in space if they looked like meatballs.
He’d seen Tanaka burn instant noodles before. Nishinoya once managed to overcook toast. If those two could wreak havoc in a kitchen, then Hinata and Kageyama together...
He didn’t even want to imagine it.
“Supervised?” He turned to look at his ’Partner in Crime’. “Do we need that?”
Kageyama shrugged, “Beats me.”
Suga and Ennoshita sighed in tandem. Across the table, Tsukishima had yet to touch his chopsticks. Yamaguchi noticed.
Yamaguchi couldn’t even argue with that.
Hinata folded his arms. “Come on! We worked really hard!”
"We even woke up early," Kageyama said.
Daichi froze. “…How early?”
The two first-years exchanged a glance. “Five.”
“In the morning?” Suga asked.
Hinata nodded proudly. “Yeah! To get the other ingredients and stuff. Like the sunrise cabbage.”
Tsukishima leaned back in his chair. “We are cooked.”
“Hey! That’s rude. Would it kill you to be nice?”
“When have I ever been ’nice’ to you?”
“Yeah, sorry, I forgot. you can’t be killed—you’re already a ghost!”
Coach Ukai walked into the room.
He stopped, eyes landing on the lunch boxes.
Then on Hinata. Then on Kageyama.
He took exactly one step backwards.
“You literally just got here,” Daichi deadpanned.
The coach was halfway out the door. “Very important thing.”
The door slid shut, footsteps disappearing down the pavement.
Tanaka watched him leave. “...He abandoned us.”
“He sure did,” Nishinoya agreed.
Daichi pinched the bridge of his nose. He had an awful feeling about this.
“...Tell me exactly how this started.”
He scratched the back of his neck. “Kageyama said cooking couldn’t be harder than volleyball.”
Kageyama frowned. “I was right.”
“You almost set the kitchen on fire.”
“...Almost. That’s an overstatement.”
Daichi closed his eyes. “I don’t think ’almost’ is helping your case.”
He rubbed the back of his neck again.
“It all started yesterday afternoon…”
Practice ended early, everyone was packing up, and Coach Ukai had just dismissed them.
“Don’t forget,” he called, slinging a towel over his shoulder. “Training camp is starting in three days. Bring your own lunch then.”
A chorus of “Yes sir!” echoed through the gym.
Hinata looked over at Kageyama. “…We always bring convenience store food.”
“So…” Hinata frowned. “Wouldn’t it be nice if we actually made something?”
Kageyama stopped zipping up his bag. “...Made it?”
Hinata nodded. “Yeah! We should practice!”
Kageyama stared at him. Then, slowly, he looked away.
“...That doesn’t sound difficult.”
“It’s just following instructions.”
That. That should have been the first warning sign.
Unfortunately for the rest of Karasuno, nobody was around to hear it. If anyone had been there, they would have immediately recognized the problem with their idea.
Not because Hinata and Kageyama were stupid. That would have been a ridiculous assumption.
Kageyama Tobio was capable of analyzing a volleyball match with terrifying precision, noticing the smallest changes in his teammates’ movements and adjusting accordingly. Hinata Shoyo, meanwhile, possessed an equally terrifying ability to observe, adapt, and improve at a speed that often left everyone else behind.
They were both smart. They were both talented. They were both incredibly hardworking.
Unfortunately for them and the rest of Karasuno, none of the skills they used in volleyball applied to cooking.
Hinata’s kitchen had never been a battlefield until that day (perhaps discounting the times he and Natsu argued over whether milk goes first in cereal [Natsu insisted it did—though Shoyo disagreed wholeheartedly]).
The two first years stood in front of the counter, ingredients carefully arranged.
A cookbook sat open between them. Everything was organized. Everything was prepared.
It was almost impressive.
“Okay,” Hinata said, looking over the ingredients. “We can do this.”
Kageyama nodded. “Obviously.”
The dangerous, unnecessary confidence.
The first few minutes actually went well. Suspiciously well.
Hinata washed the vegetables correctly. Kageyama measured the rice correctly.
Neither of them had dropped anything. Neither of them had broken anything. No alarms had gone off.
“We’re good at this,” Hinata said.
Kageyama glanced at the counter.
A normal person would have stopped there. A normal person would have considered the possibility that something was wrong.
But Hinata and Kageyama were not normal people. (not like the other girls ahh)
They were volleyball players. Stupendously incompetent volleyball players. Stupendously incompetent stubborn volleyball players
And those types of volleyball players did not give up halfway through.
The first problem appeared with the garlic. The recipe was simple.
A perfectly understandable instruction. Hinata read it twice.
Hinata looked down at the garlic. Then at the bowl. Then back at the garlic.
“Does one clove mean one?”
Kageyama frowned slightly. “Yeah, I think so.”
“Okay.” Satisfied, Hinata picked up the garlic. Kageyama turned back to the stove, then he looked over and stopped.
“Why is there so much garlic?.
Hinata looked at the bowl. Then at Kageyama. Confusion crossed his face.
Kageyama stared. “...You added one entire garlic?”
Kageyama looked at the garlic.
“Hm. I don’t know, it feels wrong—”
Hinata looked down at his creation (perhaps monstrosity would be a better word to describe it).
Kageyama stared at the garlic. He had no evidence. No explanation.
Hinata nodded. “Then it’s probably fine.”
And somehow, that was the end of the discussion.
“You added an entire BULB?!” Suga said, staring at the pair eyes wide.
Tsukishima started laughing into his hand. But then the realisation that he’d have to eat the food dawned upon him. He stopped.
Tanaka and Nishinoya exchanged a look.
“Oh!” Asahi started. “Uhm. That’s very…flavourful!”
“That’s disgusting,” Tsukishima said, nose wrinkled, leaning back in his chair.
Yamaguchi laughed nervously, “What even happened after that?”
The rice was next. This should have been the easiest part.
Rice was simple. Everyone knew how to make rice.
Neither of the two first years had ever actually made rice. But they had eaten rice.
Surely that counted for something.
“How hard can it be?” Hinata asked.
The instructions were clear. Wash the rice. Add water. Cook. Yippee, your rice is done.
The problem was the second step.
“How much water?” Hinata asked.
Kageyama looked at the recipe, and then at the rice cooker.
They stared. That was inconvenient.
“Maybe it’s obvious,” Hinata said. Kageyama considered this.
After some searching, they figured it out. Well, mostly.
The rice was placed in the cooker. The water was added. The button was pressed.
They waited. And when they opened it...
It wasn’t terrible. It actually looked okay.
Neither of them noticed that the rice was slightly softer than it should have been. Neither of them noticed because, compared to the garlic situation...
The vegetables went worse.
But not because they didn’t know how to cook them, but because they disagreed on how to cook them.
“More seasoning.” Hinata said (yes my king go add that seasoning [author is asian. i need my seasoning]).
“But vegetables are supposed to have flavor.”
“They taste like vegetables.”
“...That is usually how vegetables work.”
“That’s boring. We need more excitement. No one wants to eat vegetables and expect vegetables y’know?”
And that was how the vegetables received more seasoning.
Then a little more because “the first amount probably cooked into it.”
The tamagoyaki was where confidence became a problem.
Because Kageyama had seen people make it.
Therefore, naturally, they understood it.
Hinata paused. After a few more seconds he said. “Well, are your sure?”
“HINATA BOKE! YES I AM YOU DUMBASS!”
Shoyo narrowed his eyes at Tobio. “Uh-huh. Look at your first attempt, Kageyama! It’s so ugly.”
“SHUT UP! How about YOU try, WE’LL SEE HOW YOU DO!”
“Yeah, and I will do BETTER than you.”
The first time was ugly. The second attempt was worse. The third attempt was questionable.
By the fourth attempt, they had stopped trying to make perfect rolls and started trying to make something that resembled one.
“It still counts,” Hinata said. “Right?”
Kageyama looked at the pan. “...It’s edible, I guess.”
The taller one squinted. “Though it could look better,”
The next step was the fish. This was where things became complicated.
In all honesty: volleyball had taught them many things.
The importance of reading your opponent.
Unfortunately, it had never taught them what to do when a recipe said:
“Cook until iron pot brown.”
Ennoshita—in the present—cut off Hinata’s story. “Don’t you mean golden brown?”
Kageyama and Hinata looked at each other in confusion. “Huh?” Shoyo said.
Kageyama shrugged. “We both read ’iron-pot brown’.”
(In Kanji you can mistake characters for other ones. In actuality it’s golden brown but these stupids read it as iron pot)
Daichi facepalmed. “Please help me.” he muttered to no one in particular as Suga wheezed.
“What color is iron-pot brown?” Hinata asked.
Kageyama stared at the fish. Then at the pan. Then at the recipe.
Kageyama frowned. “Brown is brown.”
Hinata shook his head. “No.”
Kageyama looked at him. “No?”
A serious expression appeared on Hinata’s face.
“There are different browns. Like in colour pencils they have dirt brown and light brown.”
Kageyama raised a thoughtful hand to his chin. “…do they mean rusty-iron brown?”
So the two waited, and waited, and waited— all until the fish was no longer golden brown. It was approaching a completely different category.
Hinata leaned closer. “It looks pretty brown.”
Kageyama nodded. “Iron-pot brown.”
A pause. “...Maybe a little more iron pot-ness is required?.”
They waited another minute.
Kinnoshita slowly lowered his chopsticks.
“How long did you cook the fish?”
Hinata looked away. Kageyama looked away. That was the answer.
Daichi relaxed slightly. “That’s not bad.”
A collective sigh of relief went through the room. Then Kageyama added:
The relief disappeared immediately.
“Each side?” Narita repeated.
Kageyama nodded. “It said cook both sides.”
Yamaguchi stared. “You interpreted that as eight minutes each?”
“Because both sides needed equal time?”
Kageyama waved him off, “Either way…”
During the process of cooking, the fish had been patiently waiting—waiting for them to underestimate it.
Hinata looked at the recipe. “Cook until done.”
“Why does every instruction assume we know things?”
Hinata nodded. “Cooking is weird.”
For once, Kageyama agreed. He sniffed—something charred and smokey catching his nose.
“...Is it supposed to smell like that?”
Hinata froze. Kageyama looked over.
The fish was also producing a concerning amount of smoke.
“Maybe it’s the seasoning.”
(ts happened to me when I was boiling water with my cousin for ramen btw I’m not joking don’t let us in a kitchen alone. Another fun story I once put a jar of Nutella in the microwave to un-thaw it bc someone put it in the fridge but that aluminium thingy was still on it somehow [in the side] and like it set on fire. thankfully bc of my sigma reaction skills i turned off the microwave. Only person of witness was my cook. We both agreed not to tell my mother.)
Kageyama stared. That was possible. Actually possible. They had added seasoning. Seasoning could change smells. This was reasonable. This was not panic-worthy.
Except the smoke continued.
The first thing that happened was the window opened. They recognized the problem. They took action. That was good. That was responsible.
The second thing that happened was Hinata grabbed a towel.
“I don’t know yet. I saw my mom do this once. Thank God my parents and Natsu aren’t home. They’re coming back tomorrow afternoon.”
“Nice one, boke.” Kageyama said, crossing his arms.
“We can fix this.” Hinata said it with complete confidence.
They adjusted the heat. They checked the fish. They moved the pan. They tried to figure out where the smoke was coming from. Every action was reasonable. Every decision made sense. Individually.
The smoke alarm finally gave up.
Silence. The kind of silence that only happened when everyone knew something had gone very wrong.
Hinata looked up. Kageyama looked up.
The smoke alarm continued.
“...Should we turn it off?”
Another pause. Neither of them moved.
That was the exact moment where both of them realized a very important fact.
They had planned the food. They had bought the ingredients. They had followed the recipe. They had adjusted. They had adapted. They had done everything they knew how to do. But there was one thing neither of them had considered.
They had no idea what they were doing.
Hinata rubbed his arms. “Yeah.”
“The smoke alarm went off.”
Hinata and Kageyama exchanged a glance.
“How long?” Daichi repeated.
“It was annoying,” Kageyama explained.
Of course Kageyama Tobio’s biggest complaint during a kitchen emergency was not the smoke. It was the inconvenience.
The smoke was clearing. The fish was questionable. The kitchen was a mess. But the food...
Hinata looked at the table. Rice. Fish. Eggs. Vegetables.
Kageyama looked at the meal.
And despite everything...
Despite the smoke, the chaos and the fact that neither of them should ever be trusted alone in a kitchen again...
Because they had made something for their team.
Kageyama Tobio was asleep. Deeply asleep.
Which, for someone like Kageyama, was impressive.
Usually, his mind refused to turn off. Volleyball strategies, past matches, possible improvements—his brain was constantly running.
So when his phone suddenly started ringing, he immediately assumed it was important. A volleyball emergency. A team emergency. Something that required his attention.
He answered without checking the caller. Big mistake
Kageyama stared at the ceiling.
“Why are you calling me at…five in the morning, you idiot?”
Then, in the most serious voice Kageyama had ever heard from him:
“I forgot the sunrise cabbage.”
Kageyama rubbed his eyes, getting up. This must be a dream. “What is sunrise cabbage?”
“You don’t remember? Wow Kageyama. I didn’t expect this shi—”
“Shut up. But no, I don’t.”
“There are thousands of cabbages.”
“We didn’t buy cabbage, dumbass.”
Kageyama blinked. That did not answer his question.
“Why do we need cabbage?”
“Because it would make it better, obviously.”
And somehow, that silence was worse.
Kageyama closed his eyes.
“My house—wait, why do you want to know that?”
Hinata was silent. Kageyama sighed, “you know I was joking, right?”
“Obviously, I’m not stupid.”
“Why what? Why am I stupid?”
“No, but that’s a question for another day. Why call me.”
Kageyama stared. He had played against some of the strongest players in Japan. He had handled impossible receives. He had created attacks no one else could pull off. But nothing had prepared him for this.
“...You woke me up because you remembered a vegetable.”
“At five in the morning..
“Come on, Kageyama! We need it!”
Kageyama had no response—not because he agreed with Shoyo, but he genuinely did not know what to say to that.
That was how, at 5:17 a.m., two teenage volleyball players who had never cooked before found themselves standing outside a grocery store.
the grocer had looked annoyed to have been woken up (in Hinata’s defence—the store did say open 24/7) but…
The sunrise cabbage was acquired. Kageyama still didn’t understand why. He had asked—several times too.
The answers had not improved.
That was all Hinata had said. No explanation. No evidence. No reasoning. Just confidence.
Unfortunately, Kageyama knew that confidence well. It was the same confidence Hinata had before attempting impossible receives. The same confidence he had before jumping for balls everyone else thought were unreachable.
Usually, that confidence was useful.
They returned to the kitchen—now at 6 am. Cabbage. Hinata placed it on the counter. (irl idont even like cabbage I don’t know why cabbage is the first vegetable I thought of, man missed oppurtunity with spinach 😔sunrise spinach is tuff 🥶 )
“You woke me up at five in the morning for this.”
“So, asshole, what do we do with it?”
Hinata looked at the cabbage. Then at the recipe. Then back at the cabbage.
Hinata thought. This was an important question. A serious question. One that required consideration.
The situation began to fall apart. Not because the cabbage was bad. Actually, the cabbage was perfectly fine. The cabbage had done nothing wrong. The cabbage was simply caught in the crossfire of two teenagers who had decided improvisation was the same thing as innovation.
If they were the ones who invented the lightbulb…man would the world be different.
Daichi held up his chopsticks.
“The cabbage that is in this lunch.”
“The cabbage that was not in the original recipe.”
Tanaka slowly lowered his chopsticks.
“I have so many questions.”
“Why is it called sunrise cabbage?”
“Because I got it at sunrise.”
“You woke up at sunrise?”
"Yeah and I woke Kageyama up."
The team turned towards the young setter.
Kageyama looked irritated. “It was important.”
“It made the food better.”
The cabbage was added. The crisis was over. At least, that was what Hinata believed. Kageyama was less convinced. But he had learned something important over the years.
When Hinata Shoyo became attached to an idea, arguing against it was usually a waste of energy. Not because Hinata was stubborn. Although he was. But because once Hinata decided something mattered, he would find a way to make it matter. It was both admirable and exhausting. Mostly exhausting.
Hinata looked over their food.
Kageyama glanced around the kitchen.
“We just needed the cabbage.”
Kageyama looked at him. Then at the cabbage. Then back at him.
Nobody spoke. Nobody even moved. The silence was worse than before—because now they knew.
They knew about the garlic. They knew about the rice. They knew about the sunrise cabbage. They knew about the smoke alarm. They knew exactly what had happened.
And yet… The food was still sitting in front of them. Waiting.
Daichi looked down. The lunch box looked normal. That was the problem.
If it had looked horrible, maybe this would have been easier. If there were flames. If there was something obviously wrong. If the food had somehow grown a personality and begged them not to eat it.
It looked like lunch. A completely normal lunch.
“Well.” Suga said slowly.
“You know what they say.”
“No one says anything about this.” Noya said, biting his cheek, as if he hoped that could satisfy his appetite.
“Come on!” He grinned. “We made it!”
Tsukishima leaned towards Yamaguchi and whispered. “Yeah, that’s the problem.”
Yamaguchi chuckled into his hand.
Kageyama nodded, oblivious to the bullying. “You have to try it.”
Tanaka looked at Nishinoya.
Nishinoya looked at Tanaka. A silent conversation happened between the two second-years.
Nishinoya grabbed his chopsticks.
Everyone stared. Of course Nishinoya would be the first person willing to risk his life for food. He picked up some rice and ate it.
The room waited for his verdict.
Nishinoya chewed, and then paused. Everyone watched his expression.
Nishinoya looked surprised. “...It's actually good.”
The room exploded. “What?” “Actually?” “Are you sure?” “You're not just saying that?”
Nishinoya looked offended.
Nobody was convinced that this helped.
Tanaka immediately tried it—if Nishinoya survived, he had to.
He tasted the rice. Then the fish. Then the vegetables. His eyes widened.
Hinata looked confused. Kageyama looked slightly offended. “We followed the instructions.”
Everyone turned. Because somehow, that explanation made it more concerning. Asahi carefully took a bite. He had been nervous. Very nervous.
His shoulders relaxed slightly.
“It's...actually nice. Maybe…a little too seasoned. But…I like spicy food.”
Tsukishima was last. Obviously.
He had been watching everyone else like they were test subjects. Yamaguchi noticed. “Tsukki.”
A sigh. The tallest first-year picked up his chopsticks.
“I hate that I'm doing this.”
He tried the cabbage first.
Because if something was going to be bad, he wanted the smallest disappointment.
Hinata immediately leaned forward.
Tsukishima looked at him.
Hinata frowned. “That's not an answer.”
“It tastes like cabbage.”
A tiny smirk appeared on the blond first-year’s face.
“Don't push it. Even Tanaka-san and Noya-san could make something better.”
Somehow that was the highest compliment anyone expected from him.
Daichi finally tried his.
The captain. The final judge. The person who had suffered the most emotionally throughout this entire ordeal.
Then looked down at the lunch.
Daichi looked at Hinata and Kageyama.
“Never cook without telling someone again.”
Hinata deflated. Kageyama frowned.
Daichi thought about the smoke alarm damage they had somehow avoided.
Coach Ukai opened the door, poking his head through the gao
“Yes.” Daichi replied, standing up.
Ukai let out a relived sigh. Then he takes note of the empty lunchboxes.
“Wait. You guys ate it? Actually?”
“Yeah,” Ennoshita said, staring at his lunchbox and then back at Coach.
“Man,” Coach scratched his head. “Maybe I should’ve stayed.”
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