Chapter Text
Tsukishima Kei liked his routine.
Routine was one of the cornerstones of a functional grad student’s life, after all. It kept him abreast of his studies and projects and deadlines; helped him wrangle the younger grad students in the paleontology program and the TAs and, if someone has really fucked up, the undergrads; it neatly arranged his work assignments and paid his bills and kept a roof over his head.
It kept him organized. It kept him focused. It kept him steady. He floated from day to day to day like a leaf on a mountain river. No inconvenience or calamity could shatter his equilibrium.
He woke up. He made his bed. He showered and got dressed. He had toast and a cup of coffee (served with a spoonful of sugar and a pour of creamer for a count of one, two, three, to make the damn thing palatable). He walked from his little one-bedroom apartment to the bus stop and rode onto campus. He spent his days researching, reading and writing papers, examining specimens, helping the tenured faculty with their work, monitoring the TAs, grading papers. He went home. He checked his mail. He made dinner. He read a book on his couch in front of his television – most often some flavor or other of a documentary, but sometimes a drama he’d been told good things about (his colleagues’ reviews were almost always overblown), and occasionally he even pulled up the feed of the professional volleyball league.
(If the latter actually occured much more often than Kei wanted to admit to two people in particular, well, no one else needed to know. There was no one else to tell, really.)
It shouldn’t have surprised him, then, that his comfortable stasis was shattered by those two idiots in particular.
Kei arrived home on a nondescript Tuesday afternoon. He removed his shoes at the door and tossed his mail onto his center table, parsing through it and almost uniformly putting it in the “to recycle” pile. He flipped through a series of junk mail offering him new credit cards, the latest magazine that was auto-renewed to the person last at this address who hadn’t yet updated their contact information (and the magazine agency seemed to be ignoring his no longer at this address messages), three take-out menus from shops opening up nearby, a glossy postcard.
Wait.
What?
Kei frowned, staring down at the picture like he couldn’t wrap his mind around it. It was printed on thick card stock in bold, shiny colors. The photo was of two men in their scarlet Team Japan uniforms, drenched in sweat and grasping each other so tightly Kei wasn’t positive where one ended and the other began. One was tall and built, with hair so dark it was almost blue under the stadium lights; the shorter man, stocky and muscular, orange hair glowing like a beacon, had his legs wrapped around the taller man’s hips. His hands cradled the man’s jaw in strong hands and angled his face up into a fierce, bruising kiss. The rest of the picture’s background was artfully obscured by blue and gold ink.
Beneath the photo were the words: Save the Date for the Wedding of Kageyama Tobio and Hinata Shouyou.
And Kei thought, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me.
~
Kei RSVP’d to their wedding, obviously.
The Tsukishima Kei of ten years ago probably would have chewed off his own foot rather than voluntarily spend any time with Kageyama and Hinata. The Kei of now would certainly protest spending any time with them with that level of hyperbole, but when it came down to it… those two had grown on him, he had to admit.
Rather like a wart, or a particularly stubborn fungus. Kei probably would not admit this without copious amounts of alcohol or a gun held to his head. But grown nevertheless.
Kei’s friendship with the duo had not started by choice. In their first meeting, he’d been as antagonistic and casually cruel as an angsty, pretentious, condescending sixteen-year-old boy could be. And the two, with their shared brain cell they tossed back and forth like a volleyball, made it so easy. They took a single smirk to rile up, half a sentence to devolve into shouting matches. It was a vicious cycle that Kei perpetrated for little more than his own amusement.
Did that make him the Asshole of the team? Sure. He didn’t care much. Truth be told, Kei hadn’t cared much for anything back then. And it wasn’t even so much about looking cool – cool to whom? This was high school. They would all scatter to the winds at graduation, and Kei would never look back, and good riddance to stupid company.
It was about caring. Caring too much about something intangible, something like a game, something that was not within his rigid control. Putting faith in something and someone that was not his own head and hands.
Caring too much about something and losing it. He’d had his world rocked by caring too much once. Kei was not stupid enough to make the same mistake twice.
Sixteen-year-old Kei may have been a little asshole, but he did not have it in him to really be mean, or to leave someone in a lurch just because he couldn’t be bothered. Which was why he actually bothered to act when fellow first-year Yachi Hitoka smashed into his back after a practice match against Nekoma, pale and teary-eyed and visibly shaking and saying that Hinata and Kageyama were fighting, like really fighting, and she was scared someone was going to get hurt, please Tsukishima, can you stop them –
Kei had already been moving before Yachi finished rambling. Of course, one of those two might have been dead by the time Yachi finally tired herself out if Kei hadn’t just moved on ahead.
Hinata and Kageyama were both bruised and sweaty by the time Kei swept in like a storm cloud. He’d snatched Hinata by the back of his t-shirt and yanked hard, using his superior height and surprise to peel him off of Kageyama. He didn’t dangle Hinata by the scruff of the neck like a wayward kitten, but only because he wanted to make sure they were both paying attention.
“Are you quite done?” Kei had demanded. His tone was eerily calm and ice-cold. Hinata instantly stopped squirming. His right eye was going purple. Kageyama sat up on the floor, and he’d at least had the presence of mind to look a little sheepish. His clothes were rumpled and there was a bruise on his jaw.
Kei looked between the two, from Kageyama to Hinata, Hinata to Kageyama. Ever since their first day at Karasuno, they’d been a package deal. The Oddball Duo with their freak quick and codependency and obvious mutual affection despite their rivalry and differences. They were a package deal, practically a single word. KageyamaandHinata and HinataandKageyama. Kei hated them.
(Kei did not understand, until years later, that what he really felt for them was jealousy.)
“Pathetic,” Kei had sneered at them both. He dropped Hinata and the runt flopped flat onto his ass. “Get yourselves together.”
He’d stalked out before adding as an afterthought, his voice actually going low and dangerous, “And don’t ever scare Yachi again.”
Kei had thought that would be the end of it. Normal people did not like being told they were moronic imbeciles every other day, after all. Except apparently those two knocked a few more screws loose in their fight, and once they individually went off into the woods or mountains or wherever and got their shit straightened out, they seemed to decide that Kei’s new official designation was friend.
Kageyama didn’t live all that far from Kei, so he started joining him on his walks to and from school. Hinata noticed Kei ate lunch alone, so he dragged his other half over to sit with him. They realized he was passing – he was acing – all of his classes, and they latched onto him as a tutor. When Kei was worn-down and sweaty and cranky and just wanted to go home, Hinata and Kageyama would wheedle and cajole and annoy him into joining them in a never-ending triangle drill of set-spike-block until they collapsed in a puddle of sweaty, stinky limbs on the gym floor. Kei did not pay for post-practice snacks for a year because of those two.
So Kei went from Idiot Detector to Idiot Wrangler, and the harder he fought the more entrenched he seemed to become. Like quicksand.
And it wasn’t until training camp that Kei realized those two had, somehow, become his friends in return.
“Why are you like this?” Hinata had demanded one night, running after Tsukishima when he drifted his way through their daily matches and slipped away the literal first second he could. If he moved quickly and quietly enough, he might be able to escape Kuroo and Bokuto. What was it about Kei, exactly, that made morons flock to him? Did he send out some kind of homing beacon?
“Like what?” Kei had asked dully.
“Like – blegh,” Hinata had said, dragging his fingers over his face so that the skin around his eyes pulled and his tongue lolled out. It was rather one of the more flattering things Kei had heard from his classmates. “Mopey and miserable!”
“I’m not miserable,” Kei replied irritably. “I’m just… not like you. I’m not like either of you.”
Kei frowned down at his feet when he said it. Because he wasn’t. He wasn’t quick and fast like Hinata. He wasn’t a genius setter like Kageyama. He didn’t have any special moves or anyone he shared an instant affinity with, ping-ponging back and forth between childish rivalry and simmering romantic tension that choked a room.
Kei was just Kei. Kei and only Kei. And he’d made peace with that.
“Well, duh!” Hinata said, like this was supremely obvious and steamrolling past six years of Kei’s emotional walls with two words. “You’re tall and a good blocker and you’re, like, waaaay smarter than Bakageyama.”
“Hey,” Kageyama said, scowling.
“And you’re good! Kuroo and Bokuto both think so!” Hinata scowled up at Kei, butterscotch-brown eyes glittering in the summer night. “We’re the only three first-years. Which means we’re gonna take over the team one day. Leading Karasuno to Nationals like Daichi, Suga, and Asahi! Blocker! Setter! Ace!”
Hinata stuck his hand out, looking up expectantly. When Kageyama didn’t follow suit, he rolled his eyes, snatched the setter’s wrist, and stuck it on top of his own.
Kei stared. Hinata said it like they were in a superhero show. It was childish and silly and endearing and Kei suddenly thought he might cry, because it had taken him sixteen years to work how out fucking lonely he was.
Maybe the idiots flocked to him because he was just as dumb as they were. In his own way.
“Shut up,” Kei said in an attempt to hide his laugh. Not a mean little snicker or a scoff. A real laugh. “You’re both so embarrassing.”
“Caring can be embarrassing,” Kageyama said. He shrugged. “That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.”
Oh, now this moron had something worthwhile to say? Asshole. Kei lost his fight with his own smile and let it show, just a little. Hinata beamed up at him like Kei had bestowed him a precious gift.
“Fine,” Kei said. He slapped his palm over top of the other two’s hands. Hinata took that as an opportunity to drag them back to the gym for more practice. Kei sighed, red-faced from embarrassment and weariness. Kageyama’s face was red for his own reasons, Kei was sure.
Hinata stopped, staring up at the sky thoughtfully. Kei followed his gaze but only saw the moon.
“What?” Kageyama demanded impatiently.
“Just thinking,” Hinata said. Kei told him not to hurt himself. Kageyama stepped on his foot. Hinata ignored them both. “I wish we had a server.”
And so the Oddball Duo kind of became the Oddball Trio, or at least Kageyama-and-Hinata and Kei. And dammit, their last two and a half years of school were fun because of it. Study nights and video game weekends and movies and snacks and serves and more volleyball set-spike-block drills than Kei could ever count. He helped Hinata and Kageyama pass their classes and get over their nerves so they could maybe, before the sun went out, talk to each other about just how into each other they were. They went to amusement parks and museums and aquariums. One holiday, Yachi got them a set of t-shirts that said “If lost, return to Tsukishima” for Hinata and Kageyama, and “Keep them” for Kei.
Kageyama showed Kei how to take care of his nails so they would stop breaking when he blocked. Hinata showed him how to spit watermelon seeds ten feet. Hinata’s sister, Natsu, adored Kei, and he allowed her to put every butterfly clip she owned in his hair, because she liked how the sparkly pink and blue contrasted with his blond hair (Kageyama, bullied into getting his nails painted, wisely kept silent, and Hinata knew to never show anyone the pictures). Kei’s parents and Akiteru thought Hinata and Kageyama were godsends.
Senior year found Kei captain, because Ukai and Takeda were not morons and knew not to put Hinata or Kageyama in charge of so much as a gerbil. He assigned Kageyama and Hinata to help with him strategy anyway, because the three of them would be spending all their time together anyway. And those two needed the strategy experience to show off to potential recruiters; they could not just rely on their natural skill and innate chemistry forever. Hinata and Kageyama had their eyes on the national and international volleyball stages while Kei was editing his college application essays.
It was harder to say goodbye than Kei ever imagined it might be, especially to those two numbskulls. Kei was going to college in Sendai; Kageyama had been drafted into a pro league; Hinata was going to Brazil. Texting and Discord calls were good, but they just weren’t the same.
And if Kei sometimes felt like an outsider looking in, even among his two best and only friends, he kept that to himself. If he saw the games of glance-tag that Hinata and Kageyama played together over the years, the lingering touches and sparse moments of outright affection, he kept it quiet. He pretended not to notice and he pretended he did not care.
Kei was not jealous because he wanted either Kageyama or Hinata for himself. Great as they were, he’d never even thought about wanting to put his mouth or hands on them. But maybe he was jealous, then and years later, because he’d never met someone who made him smile the way Hinata made Kageyama smile. He’d never made someone glow the way Kageyama made Hinata shine like a small sun. He’d never met someone whose wavelength harmonized just right with his.
Kei walked home alone the night of graduation, and every night since, and looked up at the moon, and wondered if he would ever stop feeling lonely.
~
Kei didn’t think much about the wedding as the next few months passed. Spring finals turned into hot summer digs which became fall orientation with the newest set of TAs. Kageyama and Hinata flew through the season with flying colors, more in-sync than ever and high on the thrill of their Olympic performance and disgustingly in love. Kei taught the 101 class Introduction to Paleontology and pulled more all-nighters than he cared to admit.
It wasn’t until the weekend after the fall holiday, with three weeks left in the semester and Kei up to his eyeballs in backlogged papers and assignments (his own, and his TA’s, and his students’), that It came to his attention.
It was the worst mistake of Kei’s twenty-four years of life thus far. Although Kei was definitely inclined to blame part of it on Kageyama and Hinata’s dumbassery, because as much as they’d grown physically and, in at least some ways, emotionally, they were still as dumb as a box of rocks.
Kei was video-calling with the happy couple during dinner one night in early December, sitting alone at his kitchen table and picking apart his fish and rice. As much as he complained about the noise machines that Hinata and Kageyama were, he rather liked these nights when they could sit and catch up. Even if the professional-volleyball-playing, engaged couple had a lot more to say than Kei ever did, which was fine by him. The pair was used to Kei’s taciturn nature by now. And Kei did appreciate dinner and a show with minimal cost or imminent threat of bodily harm to himself.
Tonight Kei was treated to ever more talk of the wedding as everything was finalized. He was reminded yet again that it was in less than a month (eighteen days exactly; Kei had it marked on his calendar, and he would deny he was excited every time he was asked. He wasn’t, but he would have). He was also reminded that he would need to be there for the entire week, as if Kei didn’t know, for final groomsmen tux fittings and wedding rehearsals and to “take a goddamned vacation, for once,” Kageyama said, prompting Hinata to slap his arm and call him crass.
“Be nice!”
“When have I ever –”
The pot on the stove boiled over, creating a plume of steam that rose to the ceiling like a tiny mushroom cloud. Somehow, this set off the fire alarm, which startled Hinata so badly he jumped and knocked over a bowl of defrosted shrimp. In his haste to catch the falling shellfish, Kageyama somehow managed to upend a bowl of chopped vegetables. Kei simply buried his face into his hands and tried to remember their apartment address in case he needed to call the fire department.
The couple looked up at each other, covered in food, their matching engagement bands flashing in the light, and chorused, “Pizza.”
Kei stabbed at his dinner and tried not to feel like a voyeur into this happy relationship. Behind him, a succulent leaf dropped to the bottom of its pot.
He was only half-listening as Hinata rambled on, talking about how excited Natsu was to see Kei again, and he was only a little worried Oikawa and Ushijima would get in a fistfight at the wedding (“But Iwaizumi would probably stop it, right? Tendou will only film it, so Tsukishima, please make sure our guests don’t fight in the lodge!”), and there was a library and indoor pool and other amenities if they ever wanted a break from the ski slopes, which would be great for Kenma since he wasn’t much for the outdoors, and Tsukishima, we’re so glad you have a guest, we can’t wait to meet him, we secured you one of the last single rooms, what’s his name again?
And Kei actually choked on his food, a feat totally unnoticed by his idiots. He muted his microphone so he could cough up his dinner in peace. Hinata rambled on, completely oblivious to Kei asphyxiating on the other end of the call.
“...Can’t believe you’ve never mentioned him! Well, it’s all good, we know you’re kinda quiet about these things,” Hinata was saying.
“We just don’t want you to be lonely,” Kageyama said. He sounded less like he was interrupting Hinata and more like he was carrying on his thoughts as his fiance finally paused to breathe. “In general, and at the wedding. Since just about everyone is paired up.”
“Except Natsu, but she’s off-limits!” Hinata shouted, waggling a finger at Kei like he might seriously consider taking his kid sister as a date. Before Kei could ask what the fuck was happening, Hinata added, “Anyway! We’ll send you the guest list spreadsheet and you can add your date. And you can see who’s gonna be there! Oh, we’re getting a call from my mom – again, ugh! – so we gotta go. Have a great night, can’t wait to see you!”
The call ended. Kei found his own face reflected in his screen: bug-eyed, slack-jawed, appalled and horrified
How – what – why would they think Kei was bringing anyone to the wedding? Kageyama and Hinata knew everything happening in his life. And not because Kei was someone so inclined to share. But because he had nothing much to say. And those morons thought he’d been keeping a boyfriend from them, somehow? One he was serious enough with to bring to a wedding? And they never said anything about it until now?
What idiots. What fools. What kind, trusting, space-giving friends. Not for the first time, Kei was seized with the desire to either shake or hug those two.
Okay. There was very clearly a misunderstanding here. Kei only needed to look at his RSVP form and remind his friends that, no, he was not bringing anyone with him as a date, and he will be keeping that single room, thank you. Except when he pulled up the wedding registration page, it was to see that the stupid thing had auto-selected the “and guest” option. Because web design was neither their passion nor their forte.
Kei dropped his face into his hands and groaned aloud. It lasted about eight seconds and it still didn’t feel like enough. He groaned again just for good measure.
His computer pinged. Kei looked up miserably, glasses skewing to one side. In a horribly-timed moment of punctuality, and in fact the only one in Kei’s memory, Hinata had forwarded him the official guest list. Kei fixed his glasses and read the sheet, his stomach dropping lower and lower with every name he recognized.
Sawamura Daichi & Sugawara Koshi
Azumane Asahi & Nishinoya Yuu
Tanaka Ryunosuke & Michimya Yui
Shimizu Kiyoko & Yachi Hitoka
Takeda Ittetsu & Ukai Keishin
Tsukishima Kei & ???
Tsukishima Akiteru & Tanaka Saeko
Kuroo Tetsuru & Kozume Kenma
Lev Haiba & Yaku Morisuke
Oikawa Tooru & Iwaizumi Hajime
Bokuto Koutaro & Akaashi Keiji
Ushijima Wakatoshi & Tendou Satori
Kiyoomi Sakusa & Miya Atsumu
Suna Rintaro & Miya Osamu
Literally every person that Kei went to high school with or played against was on this list. It was like opening a time capsule. The same pairings that had been so ubiquitous and constant in his school days were right there on the page, in black and white, like they were frozen in time. Kei’s solitude stood out so much more plainly when it was put into print like this.
Or, maybe that wasn’t it, Kei mused as he went to the kitchen and cracked open a bottle of wine to pour himself a glass. Maybe he was the frozen one, and everyone else had moved on without him. Maybe he was the one frozen in amber.
This was no time for theatrics, however. Kei set down his glass and stared at his white-knuckled fists on the countertop. This was a time to stop, breathe, and think, logically and calmly, through his options.
Option one: he told Hinata and Kageyama the truth. That there was no mystery man he was hiding from his friends, and he instead missed un-clicking their stupid auto-selected box. This was immediately scrapped. Hinata and Natsu would be crushed on his behalf. Bokuto and Kuroo would never, ever let him live it down, and he would need to escape the country to save himself from the mortification. His blatant solitude would stick out like a broken thumb in the lovey-dovey atmosphere, snowflakes and hearts bouncing off of his apparently terminal case of forever single and dying alone aura. Notably, he would lose the single room.
Option two: he told Hinata and Kageyama that he had a boyfriend, but they broke up. This, too, was thrown out. Saying as much would prompt a million questions and a billion sad, pitying looks that would ruin the entire week (and Kei was, admittedly, looking forward to seeing everyone again). And, almost as importantly, he would lose the single room.
Option three: he told Hinata and Kageyama that he did have a boyfriend, who was very real and very alive, but “something” came up at the last minute and he could not make it. This one was trickier. It would stave off most of the pitying looks, but none of the questions. Kei did not want to worry about keeping a story straight for a week. And that would not actually address the problem; it would only push it off to a later date. It did not help that Kei knew his friends would be hurt and upset and confused if it ever came out Kei put on such a stupid, elaborate lie. Almost as importantly, they would also roast him into oblivion for even trying. Also, he would probably lose the single room.
Option four: Kei could do something really ridiculous, and stupid, and over-the-top, with the potential to monumentally backfire and blow up his best friends’ wedding. Kei sipped his wine, wondering: was he so terrified of embarrassment he would resort to such measures? Was he so desperate? So lonely?
… He really wanted that single, though.
With a sigh, Kei finished his glass and poured himself another. He did not want to be inebriated when he did this, but he could certainly use a little liquid courage to get the process started.
He sat over his laptop and cracked his knuckles. He opened up a new tab and ventured to the final refuge for stupid, desperate people like him: Craigslist.
Well, he thought, you can at least give it a shot.
~
I Have Made A Huge Mistake, And Here’s How You Can Make It Your Problem, Too
I have made a mistake. Without going too deeply into the details, as I do not want this mistake to go viral or get out among people I know, I can say here: my best friends are getting married in less than three weeks, and their guest list has mistakenly listed me as bringing a plus one.
I do not have a plus one.
This is where you come in, reader: I need to find someone, preferably in their mid-20s to early-30s, to come with me on a week-long destination wedding vacation and pretend to be my partner. I do not care what you do for a job. I do not care what you look like. I only care that you are a man, because I am gay and this needs to be believable, but you do not need to like men as well to do this. We’ll dance, we’ll drink, we’ll probably call an ambulance when all my friends fall down a mountain. It’ll be great.
In compensation for your time and effort, I will cover all expenses, including train fare and amenities. For more information or further inquiries, respond to this posting.
Do not fuck with me on this. Please.
~
Kei did not check his personal email for three days after his stupid posting went up. This was mostly because he needed to get his grading done for his students, navigate the tricky waters of students asking for last-minute extra credit, and finish his own non-negligible backlog of assignments.
But it was also because he was kind of terrified of what he would find when he went to check. A stack of weirdos looking for a free vacation and a quick fuck. His entire former volleyball team lambasting him to hell and back. Or, worst of all, absolutely nothing.
Kei was a runner. He knew this about himself. When confronted with a problem, he preferred to go quiet and distant and close himself off rather than face it. It had worked for years, until he met Hinata and Kageyama, and they chased after him and annoyed him into submission.
Funny how they were still doing that nearly ten years later.
It was with that thought in mind that Kei forced himself to finally open his personal email and see what awaited him.
He had almost thirty emails. Kei forced down the knee-jerk urge to delete them all, torch his computer, and leave the country. Instead, he took a deep, fortifying breath and clicked on the first one.
All things considered, the messages weren’t too bad. There was the standard email from Craigslist telling him his posting had been received, and a few minutes later, an update that it had been posted. Some replies seemed to think the post was a prank. A few others were not even offering to accompany him, and were simply wishing him luck in his plight, like he could do something with their well-wishes. One or two were women offering their services in case he grew truly desperate and thought he could get away with having a “bisexual awakening,” which was nice, but not really how being gay worked. There were quite a few of the weirdos that Kei feared, and they were roundly deleted.
And then there was Yamaguchi.
From: [email protected]
Subject: Reply re: post “I Have Made A Huge Mistake...”
Hi, Mistake –
That sounds rude, doesn’t it? I’m not saying you’re a mistake, only referencing the mistake you mentioned in your post. Since there wasn’t another name to reference you by. Which makes sense, because Craigslist, but. Well. You know that.
Anyway! I came across your posting when a friend of mine sent it in our group chat. I don’t think it was very nice of him, because you’re clearly in a bind. But I wanted to volunteer as tribute!
So. As you can see from my email, my name is Yamaguchi. I’ll hold off on a first name for now. I’m 24 and I go to a university in Sendai. I’m a grad student. I am a man, and bi, so I have a little experience in acting like I like men, because I do. Not that I’m expecting anything more than cake out of this escapade! But you want someone to act like your partner, so I imagine you’d want someone with a bit of experience in that department. If you pick me, that is. And I’m not making a great case right now, am I?
What else? I like video games and fantasy books. I don’t have any spice tolerance and I love French fries, especially the ones that are long and floppy and still kind of soft? *chef’s kiss* Delicious. And I love volleyball!!! I played in high school and college. Well, intramural in college. I wasn’t good enough for a team. But I was captain in high school and I still watch it all the time! I play for my local community league, too, ehehe. I play middle blocker and I’m a decent server!
If you wanted to meet in person to decide (no pressure of course), I know a really good coffee shop in the city. Let me know what you think?
Whatever you decide, I hope everything works out for you. Good luck!
~ Yamaguchi
Kei read his email once. Twice. Three times. Something weird was happening to his mouth. He touched his lips and realized he was smiling. Yamaguchi’s email was straightforward and honest, a little shy and flustered. And he was Kei’s age, which was a definite plus. And he liked volleyball, which was basically a requirement if Kei was going to bring anyone to this wedding with half the Japan National Team. Kei was surprised he’d forgotten to mention that. He was even more surprised that someone so qualified would reach out. Yamaguchi’s stream-of-consciousness style of writing left Kei feeling like the faceless man was sitting across the table from him, nervously presenting his case. It was genuine, unaffected, endearing.
So Kei replied to the email and asked to meet.
Thursday afternoon found him miserably rushing through a frigid mix of rain and sleet. He’d forgotten his hat, so he wrapped his scarf around his face, ears, and nose like a grandmother. He checked his phone. He and Yamaguchi had exchanged phone numbers after a few initial emails, in case anything last-minute came up. Which Kei was grateful for now, because his students’ finals had run long and his subway was late.
Yamaguchi had texted him: I’m here! Near the front, in that little nook with the armchairs.
Kei grimaced, writing with his cold fingers, Running late, sorry.
No worries! Take your time! Yamaguchi replied.
Ten minutes later, Kei finally spotted the coffee shop in question. It was a larger independent shop, with nice low-lighting, fair-trade beans, and treats from local bake shops. Kei took in a deep breath once he finally entered, savoring the scent of coffee and sweets in the warm air. His glasses instantly fogged up, and he tore them off to rub at them with the glasses cloth he kept in his pocket. His fingers were fumbling oddly. He tacked that up to the sub-freezing chill that lingered in his long limbs.
When Kei put them back on, it was to a world that was still slightly misty around the edges. It made the white string lights over the ceiling cast the room in a rosy glow. He cast a longing look at the coffee sign, but he wanted to put his things down and meet Yamaguchi first.
Yamaguchi had said he was in the front near a window alcove, so Kei craned his neck looking for the spot. He was grateful his height made it easy to see over the heads of the clamoring high school students from the school down the street and find a little spot near a set of three bay windows. Kei quietly excused himself through the throng, walking closer to the spot –
And stopped.
Because Yamaguchi had neglected to tell Kei that he looked like… that.
There was a man sitting in the threadbare, white corduroy armchair. From the curl of his limbs, he was gangly, but not quite as tall as Kei. A soft, slightly overlarge green sweater contrasted against naturally tanned skin. His hair, dark with the slightest greenish tint, fluttered just beneath his ears, and a tiny bun kept most of it out of his face. His ears were pierced in plain black studs, and there were two cartilage piercings in his left ear.
And… And he had freckles. They dotted his cheeks, his neck, the backs of his hands, his forearms where his sweater was pushed up to his elbows. Kei’s eyes caught on the edge of his sleeves and the black ink lines that trailed over his skin, too faint to recognize a pattern from this distance. As he watched, Yamaguchi scowled down at the book in his hands, rereading a passage with noiseless lips. Then, a second later, those pink lips said something that looked very much like, that’s stupid.
Yamaguchi seemed to walk the rope between “punk lite” and “academic nerd,” and Kei wondered if he was fashioning himself a noose with that rope as he made himself walk over.
He cleared his throat. The man in the armchair looked up – and up, not expecting Kei to tower over him, probably – and his eyes blew wide. He had large, round brown eyes. Short lashes. Heavy, expressive brows.
“Are you Yamaguchi?” Kei asked. His words felt heavier than usual. His tongue didn’t seem to want to move properly. “I’m Tsukishima.”
“Tsuki – yes! Hi, hello!” Yamaguchi didn’t seem to know if he should stand up or invite Kei to sit. He reached toward the red velvet chair he’d reserved for them and pulled his backpack off of it. “Sit! Or don’t, do you want coffee? You look cold! Because it is cold, and sleet-y. I managed to make it in before it started coming down. But anyway!” The man looked up at him, one hand indicating the chair, the other held out as if to shake. “I’m Yamaguchi Tadashi. It’s nice to meet you.”
Tadashi. He turned the name over and over in his head like a stone. Kei shook his hand. “Tsukishima Kei.”
“Tsukishima,” Yamaguchi repeated, smiling. He had a sweet voice and a sweeter smile. Kei dropped his hand and broke their eye contact, clearing his throat. “Seriously, do you want coffee? You look like you could use it.”
“That bad, huh?” Kei asked.
“Yes,” Yamaguchi said blandly. There was a light in his brown eyes that gave his joke away before his laugh did. But when he did, it was a faint, breathy thing, like Yamaguchi didn’t want to make too much noise in public. Kei wondered what his real laugh sounded like as Tadashi slid him a bill across the table.
“On me,” He explained. “Since you came all this way.”
Kei accepted the ten, raising an eyebrow. Yamaguchi wasn’t even being flirtatious; he really seemed to be genuine. “You think I drink ten-dollar drinks?”
“I thought a muffin might do you some good, too,” Yamaguchi confessed. He propped his elbow on the table, chin in his hand. The string lights shone on his hair, in his eyes. Tiny freckles dotted his knuckles.
Kei broke his gaze away and turned to the handwritten chalkboard of drinks and foodstuffs. He wanted to protest, but he didn’t want to be an ass while he was asking this stranger to do him a huge favor. So he kept his mouth shut, ordered a mocha with whipped cream and a raspberry-and-chocolate muffin, and returned to his seat with Yamaguchi.
“A sweet tooth, I see,” Yamaguchi observed.
“Will that be a problem?” Kei asked, returning Yamaguchi’s steady stare. A moment later, Yamaguchi’s deadpan gaze dissolved into another laugh. He was similar to Kei in that regard, Kei guessed: predisposed to more blunt humor and a dry affect, but much more prone to breaking down and laughing outright.
“Not at all,” Yamaguchi assured him, and he reached over to pluck off a bit of the muffin for himself. Around his mouthful of chocolate and raspberry, he asked, “So, I’m dying to know. Just how did you find yourself in this situation?”
Kei sighed. Quickly, he summarized his conundrum: his idiot friends and their stupid wedding RSVP system; the way they simply took it at face-value instead of asking, hey, Kei, we talk like once a week and you’ve never mentioned a boyfriend, was this a mistake?; the way they acted quietly relieved that Kei wouldn’t be the lone single man in a fifty-yard radius of all of them.
Yamaguchi listened with rapt attention. He didn’t interrupt to ask questions. He did not appear judgmental, nor did he seem to think Kei was pathetic or desperate for hatching such a ridiculous scheme. There was a knowing sort of glint in Yamaguchi’s dark eyes: not condescending, but compassionate. They spoke of an emotional intelligence that cut to the heart of everything Kei was and was not saying.
Yamaguchi listened to Kei call the grooms-to-be the moron duo and heard my closest friends that worry about me a lot, even if I worry about them more; he heard Kei say that just about everyone he’d ever met was going to be there and knew that meant everyone he’d ever known was paired up in pretty little sets, and Kei was not eager to make an appearance as alone as he’d been since he was a child.
It took a few minutes for Kei to realize he was confessing as much as he was to this stranger. He was nowhere near as emotionally constipated as he’d been as a teen, but he still preferred to play his emotions close to the chest, taking time and building up trust before he allowed his well-tended walls to melt little by little. But something about the way Yamaguchi tucked his chin in his hand, head tilted just so, and listened patiently made it easy for Kei to share.
Finally, Kei had told Yamaguchi just about everything he could. Somewhat lamely, he spread his hands, palms up, in a plaintive gesture that also doubled as a nonverbal that’s all, folks. “So? What do you think?”
Yamaguchi did not answer right away. That was fair. Kei took a sip of his now-lukewarm mocha as Yamaguchi chewed his final bits of the muffin (he’d eaten most of it. Kei realized now Yamaguchi had basically used him as his muffin mule, and strangely, he did not mind).
At last, Yamaguchi said, “I think you really don’t want to lose this single room.”
Kei actually spat out his last dregs of sweet coffee, completely unexpecting the zinger from such a sweet face. He felt himself going red as Yamaguchi laughed – good-natured and apologetic, yes, but laughed – and handed him a napkin.
“Sorry, sorry,” Yamaguchi said, giggling. “I know I shouldn’t tease, you just looked so serious, and I thought, ‘oh, won’t this be funny,’ but that was clearly a bad time, since you’d just sipped and were trying to breathe, and I don’t want to have to introduce myself to your friends weeping over your corpse like a widower –”
“Please shut up,” Kei said automatically. Yamaguchi snapped his mouth shut, biting his lip to stop laughing. He tapped at the corner of his lip, prompting Kei to mirror the motion and dab away a fleck of whipped cream he’d missed. “Thanks.”
And then, finally processing what Yamaguchi had said, he asked, “Wait, what? You’ll do it?”
“I’ll do it.” Yamaguchi didn’t crack a joke. He didn’t even hesitate. He met Kei, talked to him for fifteen minutes, and thought, yeah, I can pretend I’m dating him.
The thought made Kei’s face go hot, and he prayed no color showed on his cheeks. If it did, he’d be sure to blame it on the high-running heater and the crowd and the coffee. Not on the ridiculousness of the situation or the way the freckles around Yamaguchi’s eyes pulled and crinkled when he smiled.
“Why?” Kei asked.
Yamaguchi shrugged like the decision was just that easy. “I’m free that week. You need help. You seem cool. I like skiing and cake.”
You’re the cool one, Kei wanted to say. Reaching out, listening to me, agreeing to help a stranger. There are easier ways to get a slice of fondant-covered cake.
“Well,” Kei said, tapping his nails awkwardly against the side of his mug. “Okay. Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me just yet,” Yamaguchi said, and his smile held a sliver of mischief in it. “We’ll have to see how convincing we can be. Do I get to know the names of these friends, or will I be referring to them as Thing One and Thing Two for the entire week?”
Kei snorted out a laugh. Funny as that would be, he knew that would only make his friends more prone to whining the entire time. “You said you like volleyball, right?”
“I – yeah?” Yamaguchi said, confused by the seeming non sequitur. “‘Like’ may be a bit of an understatement, to be honest. ‘Kinda obsessed’ is more accurate.”
And there was the other reason Kei wanted to give him a heads-up going into this. “So. My friends are Kageyama Tobio and Hinata Shouyou.”
This time, Yamaguchi was the one to choke on his drink. Kei bit back a triumphant smirk at their now-even scores and handed over a napkin. Yamaguchi glared at him without heat, like Kei timed that on purpose. Maybe he had.
“You might have led with that,” Yamaguchi said, eyes accusing. Kei shrugged one shoulder.
“Then I wouldn’t have been sure if you were saying yes to help me or to meet some celebrities.”
“That’s fair,” Yamaguchi conceded with a nod. He mopped off his lips and chin, scratchy napkins tracing over golden-brown skin and a round, strong jaw. Then he froze. “Hang on. You said celebrities. Plural noun.”
“Very good. Next we’ll move on to adjectives.”
“You are annoying,” Yamaguchi countered immediately. Witty and whip-sharp, Kei noted with approval. They’d get on well. “Bothersome. Capricious. Devious –”
“Are you going to do the entire alphabet?” Kei asked, raising his eyebrows.
“Just until you interrupted,” Yamaguchi promised. “Which I’m glad you did. No idea what I was going to do for K.”
“Fair,” Kei said, and he was laughing as he did so. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone, tabbing over to the guest list Hinata sent him. He offered his phone to Yamaguchi, who accepted it. His fingers brushed against Kei’s, warm and callused. He still played volleyball, after all.
Yamaguchi’s eyes went wide and his face pale as he read the names. While Kei didn’t want Yamaguchi to drop this – he’d be fucked otherwise, and would be forced to go with plan B or C – it was a little reassuring to see that Yamaguchi seemed nervous at meeting everyone. At least Kei would not be bringing a star-struck stranger who only wanted to meet a few famous athletes on a free vacation to annoy them all at the wedding.
“You – this is –” Yamaguchi spluttered. “This is, like, half of the Japanese team at the Olympics last year? Are you telling me you know all of them?”
“Yes.” Kei plucked his phone out of Yamaguchi’s boneless fingers. “Since high school.”
“Incredible,” Yamaguchi breathed. He beamed widely, eyes shining, freckles disappearing into his smile lines. Kei’s lungs momentarily forgot how to expand. “That’s so cool!”
Yamaguchi had four piercings that Kei could see, at least one tattoo, and a smile that lit up the entire room like a flashbang. And he thought Kei was the cool one.
“They’re all dorks,” Kei deflected, his voice coming out slightly strangled.
It didn’t help. Not at all. Yamaguchi only laughed again, and this time, he did not care who heard.
