See what I mean when I say that ppl didn’t understand the actual meaning behind what Kageyama said to people especially in junior high

When he said this, he wasn’t chastising Hinata’s effort in middle school. HE himself didn’t know about what Hinata went through to get to that point. And I think when we first saw this we didn’t know what he meant either...we thought he meant what izumin did in the 2nd image

But after chapter 387 literally everything changes. See what I mean when I say you have to revisit it all again because of how the perception of his intentions with his actions changes.

When you look at what he’s thinking about before he approaches Hinata, it makes a lot more sense. See here it’s about Hinata’s skill. But because we didn’t yet have that extra knowledge, and no one around him actually heard him say what he thought...there’s confusion.

Kageyamas internal commentary on hinatas skill is significant because, well...his foil back then was his own skill, down to his hyperfixation on vb that lead him to practice constantly. But here he’s noticed that there might be someone to rival him. To make him enjoy vb again.

So when he asks Hinata what he’s been doing for the past three years, he’s doing so because he knows that with hinatas skill he could’ve easily entered in tournaments sooner. That he could’ve put up a challenge and thus allowed Kageyama to enjoy volleyball again...

...and not have left him in the state he was in by then, in his third year. With no one and nothing but a dying love for the thing he’s been the most passionate for for his entire life .

“What have you been doing” means “Why weren’t you here sooner” means “why did I have to wait until my third year to have the person that kazuyo told me would appear in front of me to do just that”.

(and why couldn’t Hinata have arrived before kazuyo died, so that all Kageyama could do by that point was blindly cling onto his words and hope that by some miracle he’d be found by who he’d been looking for)

But we all know why. Hinata spent those three years painstakingly forming a team out of uninterested friends, starting the volleyball club by himself and working his way up until he got to the end of his third year and finally in the first (and last) match of junior high.

They were both lonely, in their own ways.

But, of course, they eventually found each other. And through becoming teammates they both learnt about the significance of one another in their lives and grew into themselves as talented players and people in a way that would never happen if they stayed opponents forever.