Concrete Jungle

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/22722163.

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Category: M/M
Fandom: Haikyuu!!
Relationship: Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio
Character: Hinata Shouyou, Kageyama Tobio, Sawamura Daichi, Sugawara
Koushi
Additional Tags: Fish out of Water, Inspired by Tarzan, Fluff and Humor, Tarzan!Tobio,
Alternate Universe, Minor Sawamura Daichi/Sugawara Koushi
Series: Part 4 of Heart of the Jungle
Stats: Published: 2020-02-14 Words: 2604

Concrete Jungle
by Esselle

Summary

Hinata had known he couldn't avoid returning to Tokyo forever. There were so many things
he needed to settle with his job, and finances, and friends. But he'd always intended to go
alone, and return to the jungle as quickly as possible.

What he hadn't expected was for Tobio to ask to come with him.

--

Curious about the life he never knew, Tobio accompanies Hinata on a visit back to the city.

Notes

:D KageHina discord is running a little Vday event, and one of the prompts was "firsts" --
I'd always wanted to write about a scenario like this for HOTJ! Hope you enjoy the jungle
bois in the big city!

Many thanks, as well, to SeveralSmallBeans for organizing this event <3

See the end of the work for more notes

Hinata had never expected visiting the city for the first time to be easy.

He'd known he couldn't avoid returning to Tokyo forever. There were so many things he needed to
settle with his job, and finances, and friends. But he'd always intended to go alone, and return to the
jungle as quickly as possible.

What he hadn't expected was for Tobio to ask to come with him.

At first he'd been worried. After all, Tobio never showed the slightest interest in leaving his home
in the jungle, and Hinata knew the city would be as alien a landscape to him as outer space—only
with a lot more people than would typically be found on other planets.

But one thing he'd forgotten to count on was Tobio's boundless curiosity, particularly where Hinata
was concerned.

"You can get more books," Tobio had told him. He kept coming back around to this insistently. "I
know all these stories now."

"That's—okay, yes," Hinata agreed. Tobio could now recite Pride and Prejudice from memory.
"Tobio, I just don't want you to be…" Frightened? Confused? "Overwhelmed…"

"Won't be," Tobio said. He had thumped his chest once for emphasis. "I want to see it. I want to
see Hinata's home."

Hinata had nearly knocked him over with how hard he'd hugged him.

"It's not because you're worried I won't come back, right?" he asked.

Tobio had stared at him for a very long time. Then, deliberately and slowly, he'd taken Hinata's
face in his hands and kissed him—soft, and steady.

"No," he said. "I don't worry about that anymore."

Even so, Hinata had held him as close and tightly as he could—until Tobio followed it up by
announcing, "We will bring Hizumi, too," and then most of the evening before bed had turned into
a spirited debate about why they couldn't bring a mostly wild jaguar with them to Tokyo.

Still, the trip so far had been much more of a success than Hinata had anticipated. It had been three
years since he'd last been home—Daichi had pulled a lot of strings to make special arrangements
so they could fly back with another research team. To Hinata's relief, Tobio had taken the plane
trip in stride; though of course, he'd never been one to have a fear of heights. He also became
preoccupied with the folding tray table for a large portion of the flight, so things had proceeded
fairly smoothly.

Daichi, and his husband Suga, had picked them up from the airport—to the surprise of everyone,
Tobio and Suga had become fast friends immediately.

"Ah, Daichi!" Suga's eyes were practically shining by the time they'd dropped Hinata and Tobio off
at Hinata's old apartment complex. "Let's go back with them! I want my own whirlwind jungle
romance!"

"Suga, you can barely go seven hours without finding a new drama to binge…" Daichi said,
shaking his head. "Hinata, I checked up on the place to make sure you're all set, but if you need
anything, just give us a call, alright?"

"Will do," Hinata said. "I seriously can't thank you enough…"

"Don't mention it," Daichi told him. "Suga blackmailed me into getting to meet Tobio, anyway, so I
really didn't have a choice."

"What is 'blackmail'?" Tobio asked.

Daichi sighed. "A thing only very, very—"

"Clever and resourceful—" Suga interjected.

"—terrible husbands do," Daichi finishes.

"Oh," Tobio said. He looked at Hinata. "Don't worry. I won't do it. I'm a good husband."

Hinata patted his arm. "Thanks."

Suga wiped an invisible tear from his eye. "He's a jungle angel."

"We'll see you later, Hinata," Daichi had called, waving goodbye, and the two of them had headed
out.

That had been over a week ago, and Hinata still felt like he was relearning how to live in the city,
where all life's little conveniences were right at his fingertips.

Tobio was having an easier time than he'd expected. The books Hinata had read to him had
prepared him surprisingly well for modern living—all the things he'd spent the past years asking
endless questions about, imagining to the best of his ability, were now right in front of him to touch
and explore, his favorite pastime.

And every now and then, a memory from his past would surface, for him to discuss with Hinata at
length. He was a natural with animals, cats in particular, but once he'd met his first dog, he seemed
to remember fuzzy memories of owning one in his childhood. He also enjoyed watching sports
more than anything else on TV, volleyball in particular, and understood the rules remarkably
quickly.

Hinata gradually increased the amount of time they spent wandering around the actual city—at first
just a short time outside would exhaust Tobio (and no matter how comfortable the clothes Hinata
tried to find him were, he hated being fully dressed for any amount of time), but as each
progressive day passed, he got more and more used to the overstimulation.

"I wish I could swing," he said once, pointing to the tops of the skyscrapers around them. Hinata
grinned.

"Me, too," he said. They spent that night and most of the next day marathoning the Spiderman
movies.

It was a relief—that it hadn't been a mistake, bringing Tobio here. After all, it was where he'd been
born, and as much as he belonged in the jungle, Hinata had never wanted him to feel like an
outsider in the city.

He knew it might not ever feel like home to Tobio, but as long as Tobio was comfortable, that was
more than enough.

Hinata had agreed—at the request of his university's school of anthropology department chair, and
not entirely by his own choice—to attend a faculty dinner event midway through their stay in
Tokyo. Normally, he wouldn't have minded; it would be a good chance to catch up with colleagues
and friends.

It soon became clear, however, that the department heads fully intended for him to bring Tobio
along—and they weren't going to take no for an answer, at least not easily. Normally, Hinata would
have had no problem playing oblivious and refusing, but much of the reason he'd returned to Tokyo
was to try and grease the wheels to stay employed as a researcher. If he didn't want them to pull the
plug out from under him, leaving him with no way to support himself or Tobio if they ever wanted
to return to Japan, he'd have to play along.

But Tobio continued to surprise him. Instead of being upset, as Hinata was worried he would be
when he found out, he was all excitement.

"A ball," he said immediately. "It's a ball, like Elizabeth and her sisters go to."

Hinata laughed. "Exactly. Except probably with a lot more drinking and a lot less dramatics."

"I am going to dance," Tobio told him, with an air of finality.

Armed with the knowledge that Tobio had never so much as seen another person dance properly in
his entire life, Hinata imagined this, and nodded. "I definitely won't stop you."

"Good," Tobio said.

The night of the dinner, however, seemed to bring second thoughts.

"Hinata, I can't breathe!"

Standing vigil outside the bedroom door, Hinata sighed.

"Having to wear pants and a jacket is not the same thing as suffocating, Tobio," he called.
"Although… I kinda get what you mean."

On top of everything else, dinner that night was a formal event. Suits and ties were required
evening wear, and Hinata was fairly sure that living his entire life mostly naked in the jungle
would not be an adequate excuse for Tobio if he showed up in his loincloth. Although, it did seem
a bit unfair. The department was the one dragging Tobio to the event; they could at least let him
wear whatever he wanted.

For his part, Tobio's enthusiasm for attending a ball had flagged significantly upon learning he'd
have to dress for the occasion, but he was still very determined to see it through. He seemed to see
giving up as some kind of defeat, especially since Hinata would be attending in his suit. So, one
day while Hinata was at the university to discuss his grant with the dean, Suga had come to take
Tobio suit shopping. He'd apparently also spent a copious amount of time teaching Tobio how to
put on the suit.

It may still not have been enough.

"Why do people have to wear these?!" Tobio raged from inside the room. "Hot. Tight. Itchy—"

"I'm not disagreeing," Hinata said. "Do you need—"

"I can do it!" The sounds of struggle from inside the room continued. "Suga taught me—and he
even showed me how to watch people on too-yoob—"
"Youtube."

"On that," Tobio snapped. "So I can do it."

"Okay…" Hinata said. "You just sound pretty frustrated."

"Because Hinata keeps interrupting!"

Hinata frowned. Tobio only really slipped into his old speech habits nowadays when he got truly
flustered, or upset. "I just want to help."

"Don't need help," Tobio growled. "I can do things without help all the time."

"I didn't say you couldn't," Hinata said.

"Can do it by myself," Tobio insisted. "I can do things normal city people can—even if I'm not
from here—"

"Hey," Hinata said sharply. "Tobio, I know that doesn't matter." This time, there was no arguing
back. Just quiet, from beyond the door. Worried, Hinata leaned against it. "Tobio… what's going
on?"

"I…"

Tobio's voice was a soft mumble. Hinata practically held his breath to hear it.

"I can't do it."

That did it—he was going in whether Tobio wanted him to or not.

"Then we don't have to," Hinata said, twisting the doorknob. They could skip that evening, funding
be damned. He'd figure something out, some way that didn't make Tobio miserable. He'd beg if he
had to, he thought, as he stepped into the bedroom. He would…

He'd…

He would stand there in the doorway like an idiot with his brain completely short-circuited, staring
open-mouthed at the sight of Tobio in a full black suit, his long, sleek hair pulled back into a
perfectly messy bun.

Tobio gave him a sorrowful look and held up the last piece of the puzzle—a thin black tie, gripped
in his fist the same way he'd hold a snake that might strike at any moment.

"I can't do it," he said again, somehow sounding even sadder the second time around.

"That's what you meant," Hinata said, exhaling in a relieved whoosh.

It wasn't just relief, however—the sight of Tobio in a well-made suit made it extremely hard for
him to breathe. Now he could see why Tobio was complaining about the tightness; with his giant
frame, the suit was nearly fit to burst at the seams, jacket stretched across his broad shoulders, blue
dress shirt clinging to his chest. The black trousers were… were something.

"Can you do something for me?" Hinata asked.

"What," Tobio said, slightly sullen.

"Can you… turn…?" Hinata said. He twirled his finger in a circle. "Just stand there and turn
around…"

"Why?" Tobio asked, squinting at him.

"Just so I can make sure everything looks—right," Hinata said, swallowing harder than necessary.

Tobio scoffed. "It's right. I know." He did do as asked anyway, turning in a full circle so that Hinata
could inspect his handiwork.

Yep. Those pants were really something.

"So you just need help with the tie," Hinata said, once he recovered.

Tobio scowled. "It's stupid."

Hinata grinned. "Yeah, they kinda suck. You know, a lot of city people don't know how to tie one
of these right, either?"

"Really?" Tobio asked, as Hinata took the tie from him and looped it around his neck. "Is that a
lie?"

"Nope!" Hinata said cheerfully. Actually… after three years, could he even remember how to do
this? "Even I have trouble, but it's easier to do someone else's." He poked his tongue out of his
mouth and undid the knot to try again.

"I thought…" Tobio started hesitantly, and then barreled through an explanation in a rush, "nobody
will dance. With me. If I can't do it."

Hinata let his hands linger at Tobio's throat as he worked, making sure the knot of the tie wasn't too
tight, smoothing it far more than was necessary. Once he was finally done, he rested his palms
against Tobio's chest and looked up at him.

"I'll dance with you no matter what you're wearing," he told Tobio. "Or how tangled your tie is."

Tobio covered the hand of Hinata's that rested over his heart. "It's not tangled. Thanks to Hinata."

"You're welcome," Hinata said. "And thank you, for coming with me."

"I wanted to go to a ball," Tobio said.

"Not just the ball," Hinata said. "The city. You came with me because you wanted to see my home,
right?"

Tobio nodded. "Now we're even."

Hinata beamed up at him. "Now we're even, jungle boy."

"Don't call me that at the party," Tobio warned. "Everyone will know."

Hinata snorted. "I think you're going to stand out no matter what I do."

Not necessarily just because of the whole jungle thing. He gave Tobio another look up and down;
he'd eat his own tie if his husband wasn't the hottest person at the entire party. Even his hair pulled
back, something he had a habit of doing pretty frequently in the humid rainforest, was like an
entirely new revelation when paired with the sleek black suit and deep blue shirt.
 Tobio tugged at his tie with a grimace. "Do I have to wear this the whole time?"

"Yep," Hinata nodded. "Now you're a real city person. Some people have to wear those every
day!"

Tobio looked horrified. "Are they being punished?"

"Kinda," Hinata laughed. "I'll try and make up for it… but I don't think I'll get a chance like this
again, so I've gotta enjoy it while it lasts."

"Okay," Tobio said. "But when we get back, I want it off."

"Ah." Hinata cleared his throat. "I promise you I will help take off the suit as soon as we're home.
Very quickly."

"Good," Tobio said, appeased for the time being.

Hinata leaned up to kiss him, and Tobio wrapped him up in his arms, as warm and secure as any of
their sun-soaked days in the jungle. And that was the thing, Hinata realized—it didn't matter if
they were here in the concrete jungle, or back there in the natural one. When he was with Tobio,
wherever they were, it felt like home.

"Ready to go be the belle of the ball?" he asked.

"Yes," Tobio replied instantly, and then, "What does that mean?"

"It means everyone's going to be looking at you." Hinata rubbed his chin. "Actually, I might have
to chase some of them off…"

Hmmm. He wondered if Tobio might actually be too handsome for his own good. Then he
remembered the dancing, and grinned. That might successfully keep any prospective suitors away.

He really hadn't expected visiting the city for the first time to be easy for either of them; but
somehow Tobio had made it fun. Hinata looped his arm with his husband's, admiring the way the
woven grass ring on his finger looked when set against the black of Tobio's suit. Even years later,
he hadn't gotten tired of looking at it.

They'd be fine at the party. They'd be fine here, there, anywhere in the world—as long as they were
there together, that was the best place to be.

End Notes

Happy Valentine's day, everyone! <3

Not sure which of my stories to read next? You can check out my guide to my KageHina
fics on Carrd!

I'm on Twitter at @Esselle_hq (sometimes nsfw)! Writing updates @ Esselle_on_AO3! I

 also have a curious cat!

Please drop by the archive and comment to let the author know if you enjoyed their work!