Notes: Thanks very much to Kosho, for being my beta on this!
So, I did a little bit of research on what idols lives are like, but as I'm not the most familiar with it, I took the liberty to change some things, though I see Karasuno as a special group anyway because here they helped the old Ukai Entertainment get back on business and the company itself is different from the others. So it's like a mix from my Disney expectations and the reality.
Cross-posted on Archive of Our and in Social Spirit, in Portuguese.

Tsukishima likes to sing. But most of the time, he doesn't like being an idol.

He supposed that he should love all his fans for their support, for allowing him to be where he is and all of that. And he did like most of them, but some of them he just couldn't stand.

The most annoying thing was when they acted as if they knew him, as if he was some kind of best friend to them, even though he had never seen them before.

Right now, he wants to scream while a fan asks him if it is true that he loves Hinata. Her eyes are even shining, showing him that she is one of those shippers that really think that it's going to happen someday (and live eternally frustrated).

He wants to ask why she would even ship it. Why in the world made people think that he and Hinata could possibly be a couple? A good choice?

They could barely stand each other, spending as little time together as possible considering they were part of the same group and literally lived in the same apartment.

Except for his direct family, he only could think of two worse people to be shipped with: Yamaguchi, because it would be like incest - he was his brother in all but name, for Christ's sake -, and Kageyama, that bastard. (Okay, maybe four, because he truly pities the poor souls that would end up dating Kuroo and Bokuto). The point was that it would never happen.

He didn't know what she hoped to accomplish by asking him that. Even if he did secretly date someone, he would never share this with some random fan.

But he knew what would happen if he just told her what he thought. So, instead, he smiled. He denied and offered to take a picture. She gladly did and dropped the subject.

xxx

Karasuno was doing an interview and things should be simple, but life hated Hinata.

He was expecting the same questions as always, but didn't include those types of questions.

It started innocently enough, with the host asking if he had his eyes set at someone (Hinata gave his trained answer: his only love was his fans, that his work didn't let him have time for it). Then he had asked if it wasn't possible to find love at work, leaving him truly stupefied.

"What do you mean?" Hinata answered nervously, feeling Suga's disapproving look.

"I heard some rumors about you and another member…" he stopped, to add suspense.

Great, who was it this time? Maybe Noya? They had gone out just the two of them.

"Tsukishima," he finished.

Hinata wanted to laugh. Not this again.

To be fair, if you were an idol long enough, you would know that it was fair game to the fans to ship everyone with anyone. One time, Hinata had to explain that the girl he was hugging was his direct cousin, almost a sister, and not some lost lover. But still, Tsukishima? Why everyone insisted on them?

Their "pairing" wasn't even the most popular that involved Karasuno members (it had stayed behind SugaDaichi, AsaNoya, Kagehina - yeah, that was him - and TsukkiYama), but it did seem to capture the loudest and crazy fans. It has barely made 2 months since a fan faked a deathly ill to wish for him to say that he loved Tsukishima. The boys still had it recorded.

"There's nothing like that going on," he commented happily, forcing himself to be nice.

"So, can you say something about those photos?" asked the reporter that Hinata had already forgotten the name.

Hinata cursed himself as he looked at it. He remembers very well the moment it was taken: Tsukishima was just being his normal self and making fun of him, but because he had hit a soft spot, Hinata had blushed as he heard his words. He could see why anyone would think something different from what really was, but it made him sick.

"I can," Tsukishima interrupted and Hinata knew it wouldn't be anything good. "He was just telling me what he loved about me," he smirked and, God, how Hinata hated him. Why they were stuck in the same group, again?

Tsukishima thought it was annoying to have people believing he would fall so low to actually have anything with Hinata, but still, it was better than the people who shipped him with Yamaguchi, the guy that was his best friend.

And he could at least make fun of Hinata, a little bit. The boy deserved it for being so annoying and troublesome, always jumping to things and never using his head. Yes, he had a great voice and he danced so well, but he was an idiot.

"Oh? What did you say you loved about Tsukishima?" the interviewer jumped at the chance, not noticing how Nishinoya and Tanaka could barely stop themselves from laughing and even Suga had a mischievous gleam.

Hinata knew he was fucked. He couldn't say nothing or the media would go crazy on him, but if he said anything good nobody was going to let it live down.

"Han… he… he is really talented! And…" shit, Ukai was going to skin him alive if he ever saw this. "He is very smart, you know? He knows things about space and science. He's really hot too," damn, that was still too weird, but it was too late now, he had already said it.

"Thank you, Hinata. You're so talented too," Tsukishima said in his most fake annoying tone. He put his arms on his shoulders to grab him and then whispered in his ears: "Not as much as me, of course, shrimp. And I always knew you thought I was hot".

Hinata looked at him annoyed, how could someone be so full of himself?

Kageyama sent unsure looks at their way, as if deciding if he should be worried or amused. But he soon got distracted by the rest of the questions. Karasuno nailed that interview.

xxx

Hinata knew they would be getting some response as soon the interviewer with the Tsukishima-is-hot-incident got on the air, but he didn't expect this much.

The number of fans who seemed to ship them doubled and it was already starting some wars on their fandom - especially with Kagehina and Tsukkiyama fans.

Hinata normally didn't care whom his fans shipped him with - there was so much cool stuff about him and Noya - but how could they think there was something going on through him and one of the worst people he knew?

And now their fans went crazy, trying to guess what Tsukishima had said to him, most thinking that he was praising him. As if Hinata would even care.

"Hinata, are you coming down to eat?" Tanaka shouted, probably from the kitchen. Just as Hinata was about to reply, he added: "Or do you want to wait for Tsukishima? Or I will be enough? I'm hotter than him, anyway," he said.

Hinata blushed. The worst part of it all was that if he needed to be honest, Tanaka was wrong. Tsukishima wasn't the hottest of the group - oi, did you see Suga or Daichi? - but he was pretty high on that list, he had to admit, even higher than himself. Saltyshima had the height, the hair, the unique face and even the body. There was no way that Tanaka could surpass him on that thing specifically (but he nailed in every other). Still, Hinata would die before he admitted to anyone anything related to Tsukishima and beauty… again.

"Shut up! I'm coming," he yelled back.

He rushed to the table, eating as fast as possible to try to avoid the mean duo, but to no avail. Tsukishima and Yamaguchi joined them before he ended up eating his natto, looking every inch of the idol they were, already changed from their daily run. If it was anyone else on the group, Hinata would be worried that he had lost some memo of an event, but those two almost always dressed up well.

"Well, it appears that my fan has followed me here," Tsukishima said in his usual tone.

Hinata rolled his eyes, knowing too well the comment was for him. That wasn't even a good one.

"Of course, because it is not like I actually live here, oh, and wait, I'm on the same group," he said sarcastically.

"One fate I'll regret to the rest of my life," Tsukishima said honestly, not worrying about any pain that it might infect. He really had no happy feelings in ending up on the same band as someone so annoying, energetic and dumb.

"Tsukki!" Yamaguchi pleaded. It was too early for his best friend to pick up a fight, not that that had stopped him before.

Hinata was just about to throw an insult back, not even remembering the food anymore, when two more people appeared.

"Are you guys done?" Suga interrupted, making them all shut up instantly.

"Where's Kageyama? He didn't wake up yet?" Daichi inquired, making them all look to Shōyō.

Hinata sighed. He wanted to know why he ended up being the one responsible for waking Kageyama up. Maybe it was the fact he was the only one who actually didn't have the fear of dying while doing so (well, except for Tsukishima - but that had turned out in one hell of a fight and he was due forbidden of ever coming that close of Kageyama's bed again - and Tanaka, who had made the boy even scarier than usual for the rest of the day).

"I'll go," he said, hearing Tsukishima saying his usual insults about Kageyama.

xxx

Just his luck, they were doing another interview and once again he was placed next to Tsukishima. Though, this time, Shōyō suspected that the TV wanted to use the discussion that was going through the fandom harder than ever to their favor.

His suspicious only got bigger when on the couple challenges, he was paired up with Tsukishima.

Daichi and Suga had only finished having a short of a dance competition with Ennoshita and Tanaka, when the host of the show said something about knowing that Tsukishima and Kageyama were good with a bow and arrow (how the press even found out about this sort of thing?) and invited them to do a mini competition. She said that Hinata and Asahi should join them to see how much they could handle with a partner.

They went to the appropriate place, with Hinata cursing himself for not having listened closely when Takeda-sensei had said that they would all be doing this type of thing today. It had been so many years since he had even thought about bow and arrow, and he was never the best before.

Nevertheless, the thought that at least taking Tsukishima down with him would be fun.

They positioned themselves and the blonde bluntly asked Shōyō if he knew how to do it. Not wanting to admit the truth, he only nodded. Needless to say, he wasn't pleased when he first missed his tag.

Asashi got his wrong too, apparently too nervous to be holding a weapon. Kageyama hit him with scary precision. Tsukishima scolded.

On the next round, even Asahi hit it, making Hinata the only one who got it wrong. He got frustrated with himself, but more with Tsukishima superior expression.

"Oh, I know what is your problem," Tsukishima teased him. "You're too short to do this".

"Shut up, Saltyshima," Hinata shot back, angry. He was trying.

Oh, no. He said that on the front of the cameras. There was no way that their fans would just let it slide and Ukai wouldn't care about it enough to negotiate with the canal to cut it out.

"I'll pay you back," he promised.

Hinata thought he had never been that afraid, at least, after the incident where he had ended up falling on Kageyama in the middle of a dance.

xxx

Sometimes, Kei hated life. He hated being famous.

This was one of these days. If he was normal, nobody would care what name he was called. Instead, #saltyshima was the number one trend on Twitter the day the stupid program went public.

Tsukishima was not even a bit happy. Thankfully, he had a lot of time to plot his revenge in ways that wouldn't involve him getting arrested or kicked out of Karasuno.

He didn't think it would actually be this easy. But only two days after the terrible Saltyshima trend, he had more than twenty pictures of Hinata that could make even his most beloved fan crinkle their nose, he looked so ugly on those. He posted the first one with the hashtag 1perday, a promise to post even more ridiculous photos.

He had heard the first scream not even 10 seconds after, it looked like Hinata saw his post. He smiled.

Note: Please note that I truly don't have anything who ships Tsukishima x Yamaguchi, I just put here like that bc I thought that this would be what I believe Tsukishima would think.