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He’s supposed to be packing.
Instead, Tsukishima is mostly sitting on the floor of his bedroom in front of his closet, trying to ignore Kuroo being noisy behind him.
“Why are you laying on my bed?” He asks, giving Kuroo a well-practiced glare.
Kuroo returns the expression, his head hanging upside-down off the edge. He doesn’t look very threatening as he starts to turn red, and even less so when he turns his attention back to playing a game on his phone.
It makes loud sound effect noises while Tsukishima turns his attention back to the boxes in front of him. He’s supposed to be putting things in them, since he’s leaving in two days, but he got far enough back in his closet that he’s found all his old things from high school. He’s lived in the same apartment for four years, and the box labeled “Karasuno” had been sitting there just as long, untouched behind his least worn shoes. He’s never been one for nostalgia, but ever since graduation he’s been in a mood. He’s restless and antsy about going back home, even if it’s only for the summer.
So he opens the box, wiping dust from the top carefully before pulling back the flaps. It’s mostly junk, he realizes as he goes through it. Maybe stuff he was too lazy to throw away before moving out, maybe things he thought he’d need for some reason. There are a bunch of old folders and notebooks from math and science classes, copies of novels he’d had to do reports on. His volleyball jersey is folded into a small square, stuffed into a corner, and he hesitates for a moment before unfolding it.
“What are you doing?” Kuroo asks, seeming to notice Tsukishima’s lack of complaints in the past few minutes. “Hey, it’s your old ugly Halloween uniform.”
“Shut up.” Tsukishima says without heat. “I found a bunch of my stuff from high school.”
“What, are you going to make a scrapbook with it? Toss it.” Kuroo rolls off of Tsukishima’s bed and stands above him, tall enough to make a shadow fall across the boxes.
Tsukishima shrugs, folding the uniform back up. Normally he’d agree; it’s been years since he felt the need to reminisce on Karasuno, or feel particularly homesick. He misses his mom sometimes, and his brother, but not home really. But he’s been in a mood.
“I just want to see what else is in it.” He says, shrugging again, and Kuroo scoffs.
“Graduating university and still want to relive your glory days.” He says scathingly.
Tsukishima rolls his eyes. “They weren’t my glory days. They were just days. Anyway, your high school is ten minutes from here. You still get lunch with your old classmates. Kenma lives with you.”
He’s not being loud, but Kenma must hear his name (he’s got hearing like a damn hawk, too observant for his own good) and he sticks his head into the doorway of Tsukishima’s room.
“Kenma lives with us, Tsukishima. Be more sensitive.” Kuroo says in a mocking voice, smirking as Tsukishima glares.
“What’s going on?” Kenma asks, padding over and stepping easily into Kuroo’s space.
“Kei is going down memory lane.” Kuroo says, and Kenma looks down at where Tsukishima is sitting on the floor. His eyes land on the Karasuno jersey, still in Tsukishima’s hands, and his eyebrows raise.
Neither of them say anything else, just standing there watching him, and sometimes Tsukishima thinks it’s ridiculous how nonverbal this apartment is.
He folds the Karasuno jersey up the rest of the way, setting it down on top of the notebooks he already set aside. When he goes back to rifling through papers, Kenma and Kuroo seem to lose interest, and both sit down on Tsukishima’s bed.
“This is my room, you know.” Tsukishima says, raising an eyebrow.
“Only for two more days.” Kenma says, pulling his PSP out of his pocket.
“I can tell you’re heartbroken over the loss.” Tsukishima says, and Kenma grins in the small way he has, like if you blink you could miss it.
“Devastated.” He says, deadpan, and Tsukishima smiles back, just as small.
He shuffles through pages of loose-leaf paper that have come undone from their binders, full of errant class doodles and lazy notes. It’s underneath a few more of those that he finds his yearbook from his first year, the cover looking outdated to him now.
He leafs through the pages, past group pictures of clubs he was never in, but hesitates for a few seconds on the picture of his first Karasuno volleyball team. They all look small, with gangly limbs that hadn’t finished growing yet. Nishinoya’s stupid hair dye job, Sugawara and Daichi’s hands a blur trying to cover the middle finger he remembers Tanaka giving to the camera on a dare. He huffs something like a laugh at the memory, and Kenma looks up at him expectantly. Too observant for his own good.
Kuroo follows Kenma’s motion, and he grins when he sees the yearbook in Tsukishima’s hands.
“You kept those things?” Kuroo asks.
“You still have all of yours too, Kuroo.” Kenma comments, and Kuroo furrows his eyebrows at him. Tsukishima smirks.
“Give it here, I wanna see.” Kuroo insists, holding his hand out, and Tsukishima obliges, handing it over.
“Oh, I remember them.” Kuroo says, and Kenma looks on too, grinning slightly at the picture of the volleyball team that the book is still open to.
Tsukishima turns back to the box while Kuroo and Kenma flip through the pages of the old yearbook.
He finds the yearbook from his third year next, and opens it to compare the differences. He doesn’t look back through old pictures often, doesn’t have much experience in cataloguing the way his own appearance changed in high school.
They all look taller, the then-third years, and more filled out. Hinata’s hair was still unruly, but Kageyama’s looked slightly less regrettable. Tsukishima looked almost the same in both yearbooks, but his glasses were different in the more recent one. He lets his gaze linger on seventeen-year-old Yamaguchi for a minute before closing the cover and setting that yearbook aside, too.
Kenma reaches out and grabs it, and Kuroo lets out a laugh when they open it. “That shorty gained a few centimeters, huh.”
“Shouyou’s even taller, now.” Kenma says casually, and Kuroo double-takes.
“When’s the last time you saw Hinata?” Tsukishima asks, intrigued.
“In person? A long time ago. But we facetime, and he’s very proud of his height.” Kenma shrugs. Kuroo still looks baffled.
“How did I not know about this?” Kuroo asks, and Kenma raises his eyebrows.
“It wasn’t a secret. You’re just unobservant.” Kenma says. Kuroo doesn’t say anything.
“Don’t get jealous, Tetsurou.” Kenma teases, tugging on a piece of Kuroo’s unruly hair, and Kuroo blushes slightly.
“Anyway.” Tsukishima says pointedly, and Kenma and Kuroo go back to looking between the two yearbooks.
As Kuroo flips the pages, a piece of paper flutters down to the floor, and Kenma leans over to pick it up.
“Whose phone number is this?” Kenma asks in his small voice. Tsukishima furrows his eyebrows at the slip of paper before he remembers.
It’s written in purple ink, scrawled carelessly, and he remembers Yamaguchi handing it to him during a class. “My new number, so you don’t forget,” he hears in Yamaguchi’s voice, and he feels himself smile against his will.
“Well, that makes me want to find out.” Kuroo says, looking at Tsukishima’s expression, and he’s already grabbed Tsukishima’s phone from the bedside table before he snaps out of his own head.
“What are you — Kuroo, stop.” Tsukishima says, but Kuroo keeps pressing buttons on Tsukishima’s phone, and why does he not have a password on that thing.
“Not in his contacts.” Kuroo says conversationally, and Tsukishima stands up but so does Kuroo, holding the phone out in the arm farthest from Tsukishima as he fights to grab it.
“Kuroo, stop — you — are — such — an — asshole,” Tsukishima says as Kuroo slaps away Tsukishima’s hands.
“Give me —” Tsukishima starts, but then Kuroo hands him the phone, and Tsukishima hears a tinny “Hello?” on the other end even without putting it up to his ear.
Too late to hang up. He puts the phone up to his ear as Kuroo cackles quietly, and reaches out to punch Kuroo with his free hand.
“Uh, hi.” He says unceremoniously. Kuroo is kicking back at him, and he bites back swear words.
“Tsukki?” Yamaguchi asks from the other end, and he can’t help the small grin he gets at the nickname, even while fighting Kuroo one-handed.
“Hi.” Tsukishima says again, like an idiot. “Yeah. Yes.”
“What’s...up?” Yamaguchi asks, sounding confused. His voice is deeper than it used to be, Tsukishima thinks. Or maybe it’s just been a long time, and his memory is exaggerating it.
Kuroo tackles him to the ground.
“What was that? Are you okay?” Yamaguchi ask after the thump that the two of them made as they hit the floor. He sounds concerned.
“I’m fine, I’m good. Sorry for calling out of the blue, uh, my friend dialed you.” Tsukishima says, kneeing Kuroo hard enough to make him swear.
“Oh. Okay?” Yamaguchi says, confused. “I mean, it’s okay. I didn’t know you still even had my number.”
“I didn’t, I got a new phone a while ago, but I was going through old things, and — it’s a long story.” Tsukishima says, picking himself up from the floor to glare menacingly at Kuroo, curled on the floor nursing the place in his shin where he got kneed. Kenma is still sitting on Tsukishima’s bed, looking on at the scene with mild interest over the top of his PSP.
He walks out of the room into the living room, pacing back and forth across the floor without noticing as Yamaguchi asks, “How have you been?”
“Good, I’ve been good.” Tsukishima says. There’s a moment of quiet. “I just graduated.”
“Oh, congratulations.” Yamaguchi says brightly, and Tsukishima grins again. “Me too.”
“Are you staying in Sendai?” Tsukishima asks, mostly just to have something to ask.
“No, I’m going back home this summer. Where are you headed?”
“Home.” Tsukishima says. The line goes quiet again.
“Well, we should make plans.” Yamaguchi says a moment later.
“Yeah.” Tsukishima agrees.
“Tell me when you’re back, alright? We’ll see each other.” Yamaguchi says, sounding sincere. But he usually sounded sincere, so he’s not sure if it’s worth noticing or not.
Tsukishima agrees, trying to sound noncommittal, and hangs up in a daze.
“What was that all about?” Kuroo asks as Tsukishima walks back into his room, eyebrows raised in amusement.
“It was that boy. The one with the freckles.” Kenma says calmly, looking up from the game he resumed a few minutes ago. “Right?”
“I — how did you know that?” Tsukishima asks, furrowing his eyebrows.
Kenma shrugs, going back to his game.
“What boy?” Kuroo asks curiously, and Kenma rolls his eyes.
“My friend from high school.” Tsukishima says quietly.
“That was not a conversation between old friends.” Kuroo says, laughing. “What, did you two have a bad breakup?”
“We were just friends.” Tsukishima says calmly, going back over to the boxes on the floor.
“Oho ho?” Kuroo says, grinning mischievously. Tsukishima doesn’t respond, just piles all the junk back into the Karasuno box. “Just friends? Whose choice was that?”
Tsukishima pauses to turn and glare at Kuroo. “Knock it off.”
Kuroo raises his hands defensively and sits back down next to Kenma, watching the action on the screen of the PSP. They share a look that Tsukishima doesn’t approve of.
He hadn’t spoken to Yamaguchi in years. He stayed in Miyagi when Tsukishima moved to Tokyo, and their promises to stay in touch only lasted through their first year in university. It was hard, Tsukishima learned, to keep up a friendship based on proximity when you were three hours apart.
Tsukishima never had much perseverance. He only did things that came easily to him; it’s why he got a degree in mathematics without feeling the need to soul-search for a major instead, pursue some dream that wouldn’t come true. It’s why he quit volleyball after high school. He likes stability. He likes when things don’t challenge him. When he got offered a place at University of Tokyo and the tall middle blocker he remembered from Nekoma asked if he needed a place to stay, that was easy too. They got along well enough, in their own way.
It was hard to find time to bridge a gap, Tsukishima learned. And Yamaguchi must have felt the same way, since the texts and messages stopped coming near the end of his first year at university. He stayed in Tokyo over the summer, but Yamaguchi never asked him if he was coming home.
“Hey, stop brooding, loser.” Kuroo says to him, and Tsukishima snaps out of it.
He goes back to packing.
++
Being home as an adult is strange. He learns that quickly. His bed feels too small, his room is full of things that embarrass him (who in god’s name let him display dinosaurs on his wall throughout all of high school?), and his mother making him meals feels completely strange after four years of doing it for himself.
It’s three weeks after coming home when he tries to ignore the embarrassment he feels running errands for his mom, pushing up his glasses as he looks down at a grocery list, checking off all the items in his basket.
And he’s content to have this be the extent of his activity for the day, to walk back home and spend the rest of the afternoon applying for jobs and watching TV shows that he’s roughly two years behind on. But apparently, as he learns as he walks out of the sliding doors with his bags and someone slams bodily into him, life has other plans.
His grocery bags fall from his hands, the plastic ripping audibly as they hit the sidewalk, and Tsukishima grits his teeth as he turns to glare at the human wrecking ball, except —
“Tsukishima?” A familiar voice asks, and he realizes, with a glance at a flurry of red hair, that it’s Hinata Shouyou.
“Idiot.” Tsukishima says in an irritated voice, bending to pick up his groceries.
“Oh. Sorry!” Hinata says, only just realizing the amount of chaos he caused. He bends over to help gather up the mess.
Hinata’s hair is shorter, and Kenma was right, he’s a bit taller. But he’s still the short idiot running too fast to tell he’s about to slam into things, Tsukishima thinks with annoyance as he walks back inside the store to get more plastic bags.
When he walks through the doors again, from the cool air conditioning to the humid warmth of outside, his eyebrows furrow in confusion at the sight in front of him.
Hinata is still crouched over Tsukishima’s groceries, now contained to a neat pile, and next to him is a different version of Yamaguchi Tadashi than he used to be familiar with.
The grocery store’s doors make a dinging noise at being opened and Yamaguchi glances over at him, smiling tentatively.
“Hey, Tsukki.” He says, running a hand through his hair. It’s longer than it ever used to be, tied back in a tiny ponytail at the nape of his neck. He’s tan, and his skin looks darker at the tops of his shoulders and his cheeks where his freckles are heavy.
“Hey.” Tsukishima says back finally, feeling vaguely like he got the air knocked out of him.
“You’re home.” Yamaguchi says, more like a statement than a question, and Tsukishima nods as he walks over to where Yamaguchi is standing. “I like your glasses.”
“Thanks.” Tsukishima says. He forgot they’re bigger than they used to be.
They look at each other for a few seconds before Tsukishima remembers that his groceries are still laying on the ground, and he bends over and starts to put them back into bags. He had also sort of forgotten that Hinata was still there, seemingly observing the situation carefully but not saying anything.
“I’ve got to go, Tadashi, are you coming?” Hinata asks Yamaguchi, and something bristles at Hinata calling him by his first name so casually.
“I’ll catch up.” Yamaguchi says, and Hinata laughs.
“No you won’t!” He says over his shoulder before running off again.
“He hasn’t changed much.” Tsukishima comments as Hinata’s figure disappears, tying the handles of his grocery bags into bows.
“You’d be surprised.” Yamaguchi says, leaning down to help pick up the rest of the groceries into the last bag.
They’re quiet for another moment, before Tsukishima asks, “So you two are friends?”
“Well, we’ve been in Sendai together for four years.” Yamaguchi shrugs, standing back up. He’s in a loose tank top and tight-fitting jeans that really, in Tsukishima’s opinion, it’s too warm for.
“Right.” He says, because he forgot. He remembers now, the fact that Yamaguchi and Hinata went to university together. He grimaces at the thought of how much he’s forgotten.
“How have you been, Tsukki?” Yamaguchi asks, looking at him with all the sincerity that was always in his expression.
Tsukishima blinks and swallows, unsure of why he’s uncomfortable. “I’ve been good.”
“Me too.” Yamaguchi says, smiling broadly. Tsukishima can’t get over how much older Yamaguchi looks, like he finally grew into himself. He seems taller but Tsukishima can’t tell if he’s actually grown any, or he’s just stopped trying to make himself seem smaller than he ever was.
“Let me help you.” Yamaguchi says, reaches over and takes two of the bags from Tsukishima’s hands. “You’re walking home, right?”
“It’s okay, you don’t need to.” Tsukishima says, reaching back out for the bags, but Yamaguchi shrugs.
“I know I don’t need to, Tsukki.” Is all he says, before he starts walking in the direction of Tsukishima’s house, looking back over his shoulder expectantly.
Something is off-balance here, Tsukishima thinks as he follows after Yamaguchi, his eyes drawn to the way Yamaguchi stands up straight now instead of slouching. It makes him aware of his own posture, and it makes him aware of how tuned into Yamaguchi’s physicality he had been before.
At least Yamaguchi still talks the same way he always used to, calmly telling rambling stories without waiting for Tsukishima to respond. They walk the familiar route toward the Tsukishima house, Yamaguchi gesticulating with his hands and making the plastic bags rattle.
He learns over the course of the walk that Yamaguchi got a degree in environmental science, and he keeps talking about water pollution while they walk, the sun at their backs giving them long shadows that stretch in front of their feet.
“What’d you end up doing, math?” Yamaguchi asks, kicking a rock along with the toe of one of his sneakers.
“Yeah.” Tsukishima says, watching the rock skitter down the road in front of them. “Am I that predictable?”
Yamaguchi just laughs, because they both know the answer is yes. It was always his plan, since his second year of high school, and it was still rare for him to veer off-course.
“You never told me you were back.” Yamaguchi says a moment later, looking over at him.
“Oh. Yeah. Sorry.” Tsukishima says, feeling his cheeks flush.
“It’s okay, just. I’d like to be your friend again, you know?” Yamaguchi says.
It’s off-putting, almost, how direct he’s being. It’s so distinctly different from the stumbling, apologizing boy he remembers, always looking up at Tsukishima sheepishly.
“You’re different.” Tsukishima says bluntly, and Yamaguchi grins. They’re at Tsukishima’s driveway now, just standing in front of the house.
“I grew up.” Yamaguchi says, still smiling, like it’s the easy answer. Something about it punches him in the gut
“I want to be your friend again too.” Tsukishima says.
Yamaguchi smiles bigger. “Well, good.”
They stand still for a minute, Yamaguchi smiling up at him and Tsukishima grinning small back.
“I gotta get going, I really do have to catch up with Hinata. He’s coaching at Karasuno now, he wanted me to help out.” Yamaguchi says.
“He’s coaching?” Tsukishima asks with a laugh.
Yamaguchi gives a short laugh, but he follows it with, “Yeah. He’s really good. He wants to be a teacher.”
Tsukishima just nods, can hear the defense in Yamaguchi’s voice. It’s been too long, he guesses. He doesn’t know what to say to make Yamaguchi laugh anymore.
“I’ll text you, okay?” Yamaguchi says earnestly as Tsukishima takes the grocery bags from his hands.
“Yeah.” Tsukishima replies, watching him walk off. The jeans look good on him, and Tsukishima feels his face flush again. He pretends it’s from the heat.
++
It’s two days later when he wakes up to three unread text messages.
The first is from Kuroo, hows the countryside? Have u forgotten what real buildings look like yet?
He rolls his eyes before replying, Hilarious. At least I’ve forgotten what you look like.
The second message is from Kenma. shouyou says you’re cuter but still an asshole, glad you’re reconnecting with old friends. He furrows his eyebrows at the word “cuter.”
The third is from Yamaguchi at 2 AM the night before, we should hang out tomorrow Tsukki. It’s still an unsaved number in his phone, but no one else would call him Tsukki; no one else ever had.
Okay, he responds, wiping the sleep from his eyes.
He doesn’t really know what hanging out means anymore. In high school it meant doing homework, or loitering in one of the six places they were allowed to loiter. In university it meant anything from studying to once, memorably, accompanying a group of art students as they graffiti’d a building while drunk.
He guesses with Yamaguchi it’ll lean closer to the former, and he decides to put it out of his mind as he slumps out of bed. When he pads down the hall to the living room, he finds his mom and his brother sitting at the kitchen table.
“Good morning,” His brother says happily, waving. Tsukishima just makes an agreeable noise, putting his glasses on so he can see them properly.
Akiteru and their mother continue talking in their soft voices as he makes himself a small breakfast, walking back over to the kitchen table to sit down.
“Kei, I’m playing volleyball with some friends later, do you want to come?” Akiteru asks him when he sits down.
Tsukishima moves food around on his plate. “I have plans, actually.”
“What plans?” His mom asks, and Akiteru laughs.
“I’m seeing Yamaguchi.” Tsukishima answers casually.
“You two used to be close, didn’t you?” His mom asks him, trying to sound conversational.
“Yeah.” He doesn’t feel like getting into a discussion about friendship and how he should have preserved it with his mom at eleven AM, so he doesn’t say any more.
“Well, I’m glad you’re seeing each other.” She says, giving him a small smile that he returns around his food.
His family is quiet, and he likes it that way. They know when to ask the questions they want to ask and when to hold back.
“Do you miss your roommates?” Akiteru asks him.
“A little.” Tsukishima says, and Akiteru grins at him.
“You liked them, didn’t you?” His mother asks, sounding concerned.
“They’re my friends. That doesn’t mean I miss living with them.” He says, shrugging.
Kuroo was always a mess, leaving dirty dishes everywhere that he wouldn’t ever clean up, so it was Tsukishima’s job to make sure they didn’t start growing things. Kenma always made their bathroom smell like bleach and hair dye, and somehow his clothes got everywhere, t-shirts with loud prints always working their way into Tsukishima’s laundry basket. And then they were always staring at each other like they were in a romantic drama without seeming to realize they were doing it, kissing on the couch while Tsukishima was trying to study for exams.
They’re his friends, but as roommates, they’re disasters. Still, though, he can’t say he doesn’t miss them.
“Are they still...involved?” His mother asks politely, making him choke on his breakfast and Akiteru start laughing.
It was two years previously when his mother visited for the weekend as a surprise and was treated to the sight of Kuroo and Kenma kissing against the kitchen counter at ten in the morning. Apparently it was memorable for her.
“Yep.” Tsukishima asks once he gets past the breakfast lodged in his throat.
“That’s nice.” She says pointedly.
Sometimes he wonders if his mother thinks he ran off to the big city and got inducted to some kind of gay cult, the way she always aims sentiments like that at him. (He didn’t get join a gay cult, but he did realize he was gay; that doesn’t mean he’s felt it necessary to inform his family of it.) This is another time he’s glad his family doesn’t always ask the questions they want to know the answers to.
He lets the topic drop and finishes his breakfast quietly, letting Akiteru carry on the conversation again. His phone buzzes in the pocket of his pajama pants, and he fishes it out to see a text from Yamaguchi.
let’s get popsicles, it’s hot today, it says, and he grins down at his phone.
His mom and his brother share a look, and Tsukishima ignores them.
++
Some part of him expects Ukai to still be working in the shop, his hair tied back in the same headband it always was. Instead, when he goes to pay for his and Yamaguchi’s popsicles (as a thank-you for the groceries and an apology, maybe), he finds Nishinoya Yuu.
“Hey! Glasses-kun all grown up!” Nishinoya says loudly. His hair isn’t gelled up anymore, instead hanging loosely down from one side with the other shaved close to the skin. His arms are covered in tattoos, and none of this surprises Tsukishima.
“Hi, Noya-san.” Yamaguchi says in a friendly voice as Tsukishima pushes up his glasses indifferently.
“Yo, Yamaguchi.” Nishinoya says, pointing finger-guns at him.
“You coming to Ryuu’s party next week?” Nishinoya asks Yamaguchi as he puts Tsukishima’s money in the till.
“Yeah, probably. Is Asahi coming?” Yamaguchi asks, pushing his hair back off his face. It’s not in a ponytail today, just hanging down to the base of his neck, shaggy.
Nishinoya laughs, a loud bright thing. “Of course. I want to get him drunk enough that he sings karaoke.”
Tsukishima watches the interaction, watches Yamaguchi wave goodbye as they walk out the door of the shop, the bell on the door jangling as it shuts behind them.
“Are you still friends with everyone from Karasuno?” Tsukishima asks while he unwraps his popsicle. The more he sees Yamaguchi smile with people he used to laugh at with Tsukishima, the more he feels like he’s out of the loop.
Yamaguchi furrows his eyebrows, like he’s trying to think. “Mostly. I haven’t seen Shimizu in a while, but she’ll probably be at that party. Kageyama hasn’t been around in ages, he’s been training for nationals. He’s one of the best setters in Japan now, top ten, I think. Shouyou knows the exact number. Daichi and Suga-san live in Sendai now, so I saw a lot of them.”
Tsukishima nods, taking a bite of his popsicle and watching Yamaguchi do the same.
“What about you? You lived with those Nekoma guys, right?” Yamaguchi asks.
“Yeah. Kuroo and Kozume.” Tsukishima agrees. They’re walking, maybe unconsciously, along the path to the park they used to sit in and do homework in high school. It’s a familiar routine.
“What are you doing after the summer?” Yamaguchi asks him as they sit down on a park bench, not looking at him. He’s watching the kids playing on the swingset, chasing each other around the jungle gym.
“I don’t know,” Tsukishima answers honestly. “I’m applying for jobs, some in Tokyo, some in Miyagi. I don’t know.”
Yamaguchi nods as he finishes his popsicle. “Did you like Tokyo? I can’t imagine living in a real city like that.”
“It was different.” Tsukishima agrees. “I don’t know, I wanted something new. It was definitely that.”
They’re quiet again.
“What about you?” Tsukishima asks, realizing he didn’t return any of Yamaguchi’s questions. Once, he wouldn’t have had to, but he doesn’t know their dynamic anymore. He’s trying to err on the side of caution.
“What am I doing after the summer?” Yamaguchi asks, turning to him. Tsukishima nods.
“More of the same, I guess. I have a lab internship in Sendai that starts in August, so I’m moving back. Then hopefully they’ll hire me on full-time in the winter.” Yamaguchi says. He laughs, “It’s weird being more put-together than you, Tsukki.”
Tsukishima laughs quietly alongside him.
“It’s strange, being an adult but not being an adult. You know?” Yamaguchi asks, pulling his legs up to his chest and resting his head on his knees. “Guys like Noya and Asahi-san have been living real lives while we were off in school. Even Tanaka-san.”
“I guess.” Tsukishima replies, crumpling and uncrumpling his popsicle wrapper in his hand. He doesn’t want to think about Tanaka being more of an adult than him, but it’s probably true.
“Being home is weird.” Tsukishima decides, and it makes Yamaguchi laugh.
“I’m glad you’re home.” Yamaguchi says quietly, and Tsukishima looks at him.
This, Yamaguchi curled in on himself on a familiar park bench, this feels the same. He can ignore the way Yamaguchi’s arms have put on muscle and his face has gotten older. He drops his eyes to Yamaguchi’s shoulders, and he furrows his eyebrows.
“Is that a tattoo?” He asks, pointing toward the small black line on the slope of his collarbone.
“Oh. Yeah.” Yamaguchi says, smiling sheepishly. He pulls the neck of his t-shirt to the side so Tsukishima can see it in full, a dotted line connecting three small black dots.
“It’s a constellation.” Yamaguchi says.
“Oh.” Tsukishima says, mostly because he’s surprised. “I like it.”
“Thanks,” Yamaguchi says brightly.
They spend the rest of the afternoon talking quietly, Yamaguchi telling stories about university.
“Then Shouyou got really drunk, and we were nineteen, we didn’t know what we were doing, I thought he might die. So I dragged him to Daichi and Suga-san’s place at three in the morning.” Yamaguchi says, laughing.
Tsukishima laughs, too. “Why didn’t you just go home? Or to the hospital?”
“I don’t know! I was drunk too. I just thought Suga and Daichi could fix it.” Yamaguchi says. “We woke them up, and Suga-san was wearing a bathrobe like a housewife and Daichi-san kept lecturing us.”
Tsukishima can picture it clearly, and it makes him laugh harder.
“They just gave us water and some food and let us sleep on their couch. It was completely ridiculous.” Yamaguchi finishes. He’s still laughing, and he leans over from the force of it, his shoulder resting against Tsukishima’s.
There’s a sudden urge to pull him closer, and it takes Tsukishima by surprise — he’s never been a touchy-feely person. He jolts from his own thoughts, and Yamaguchi pulls away as he stops laughing.
“Oh, sorry, Tsukki.” He says lightly, an apology for the point of contact between their bodies.
“No, it’s — sorry, I didn’t mean to.” Tsukki tries to explain, but he can’t think of a way to put it right and get Yamaguchi’s shoulder back against his, so he stops talking. Yamaguchi doesn’t seem to put any weight into it, though.
“I’m glad I’m home, too.” Tsukishima says, and Yamaguchi smiles at him easily.
++
Tsukishima is startled by how easy it is to slip back into how things always were.
They spend a week finding a routine. One afternoon is spent in Yamaguchi’s bedroom, rifling through his older sister’s oversized collection of video games, the same way they used to in high school. Yamaguchi’s younger sister walks across the cords of their controllers and tilts her head looking at Tsukishima.
“You got old.” She comments with some level of disdain.
“You too, Harumi-chan,” He says back easily, and she sticks her tongue out at him. She must be fifteen now but it’s hard to not think of her as the elementary schooler following Yamaguchi around in the house.
Another day is spent with Yamaguchi pulling weeds out of his neighbor’s gardens while Tsukishima watches and texts Kuroo. He sends Tsukishima cat emojis and Tsukishima replies, You’re twenty-three years old. He gets another text with more cat emojis from Kenma’s phone. Yamaguchi is wearing a big sunhat and looks like a very mismatched farmer, the grass staining the knees of his ripped jeans.
And it’s a few days after that when he finds himself in their actual high school gymnasium. He didn’t particularly want to tag along, but Yamaguchi had promised Hinata to help with practice again. And something about the expression Yamaguchi put on when he wanted Tsukishima to go along with something always had a way to override Tsukishima’s better instinct. Sometimes, Yamaguchi reminded him of a puppy, and grudgingly he could admit that was endearing despite the fact that Tsukishima didn’t like dogs.
“They’re so small.” Tsukishima comments to Yamaguchi as they sit on the bench, pointing at the high-school volleyball team. Hinata is explaining the importance of receives, and using more actual words than video game sound effects, which is enough to impress Tsukishima.
“We used to be that small, I guess.” Yamaguchi says back, tying his hair up into one of his miniature ponytails.
“I was never that small,” Tsukishima argues for the sake of argument (he’s bored.)
“Oh, I forgot you were born 180 centimeters tall with glasses and a scowl already on your face.” Yamaguchi says with a smirk.
“Shut up,” Tsukishima says through a surprised laugh, and Yamaguchi looks proud of himself.
Tsukishima hasn’t played volleyball since high school, since being in this same gymnasium, and it’s a strange feeling being back. He’s wearing Akiteru’s gym shoes since his old ones are too small now, and workout clothes that he barely had any use for in university. It’s nostalgic, maybe, he thinks. He never loved volleyball but he did, against his own will, enjoy it sometimes.
Hinata has a completely different energy than Ukai ever did. He’s running back and forth along the sideline as the students play, shouting encouraging messages every once in a while. It makes Tsukishima laugh to watch him, the way he bounces around like he’s younger than the students.
“I’m surprised he ever stopped playing.” Tsukishima says quietly, nodding toward where Hinata is jumping up and down on the sidelines.
“He had to. He hurt his shoulder in our third year.” Yamaguchi explains in a hushed voice with a glance toward Hinata. Tsukishima raises his eyebrows.
“It was bad.” Yamaguchi says, seeing the look on Tsukishima’s face. “It was either stop playing volleyball or a fortune on surgery.”
And for the first time, Tsukishima feels sorry for Hinata. “That’s terrible,” He says, because it’s the truth. He can’t imagine caring about something as much as Hinata cared about volleyball and having it taken away; if he’s honest, he can barely imagine caring about something as much as Hinata cared about volleyball, period.
"You two!" Hinata yells, turning toward where Tsukishima and Yamaguchi are slouching on the sidelines. "Stretch, will you?"
Tsukishima rolls his eyes a bit at the boy still half his size ordering him around, but he stands up and starts the routine of stretches still burned into his muscle memory.
"Did you play all through university?" Tsukishima asks Yamaguchi, because he realizes that he hasn't thought to ask before. They haven’t really talked about volleyball.
"Yeah." Yamaguchi answers, balanced on one foot as he stretches the hamstring of his other leg.
"And you quit, finally." Yamaguchi says it as a statement, not a question. It's not bitter, but it could be if Yamaguchi wasn't smiling, small and understanding.
Tsukishima doesn't respond, looks down at his shoes as he rolls his shoulders. They haven't talked about this since high school, the way that in their third year, Yamaguchi had to convince Tsukishima not to quit before spring high.
"You were a good captain." Tsukishima says instead of acknowledging that conflict, one of the few arguments that still make something in Tsukishima's stomach ache from guilt.
"Thanks." Yamaguchi says, his smile still intact.
At least they're still just as good at talking without saying much, their own low-level form of telepathy honed over most of their lives.
"Oi! Tsukishima-san! Block their spikes, would you?" Hinata calls over to them, breaking the atmosphere.
He gets on one side of the net, and after a few easily-blocked spikes from the group of high school kids, Hinata employs Yamaguchi to teach by example and try to help them get the ball past Tsukishima.
"You got taller," Yamaguchi says through heavy breath after his spike ricochets off of Tsukishima's palms.
"You only noticed that playing volleyball against me? You've spent too much time with Hinata." Tsukishima says with a smirk.
"Hey!" Hinata yells from the sideline.
Yamaguchi gets a series of spikes past Tsukishima after that, and after Yamaguchi gets warmed up it becomes obvious who’s been training for four years and who hasn’t. The feeling of getting bested again and again is one thing he doesn't miss about volleyball, but it's Yamaguchi, so it doesn't bother him much. The high school kids pick up on new technique quickly, and by the end of the practice their spikes start to look better.
Hinata blows his whistle at some point, ending practice with another pep talk aimed at the team, and Tsukishima wipes the sweat from his brow.
“Do you miss it?” Yamaguchi asks him as the kids clean out the gym. Watching first-years run back and forth with mops is too familiar.
“Not really.” Tsukishima says. He’s afraid it will make Yamaguchi wilt, but he laughs instead.
“I’m surprised I got you to stay, in third year.” Yamaguchi says lightly.
“I stayed for you, not because of the game.” Tsukishima tells him quietly over the noise of sneakers against the gym floor.
“Yeah. I know.” Yamaguchi says back, looking at him.
Tsukishima swallows. It’s a heavy conversation to be having still surrounded by high school students, and something in Tsukishima’s brain laughs at the incredible irony of it happening after yet another volleyball practice.
“C’mon, let’s get going.” Yamaguchi says to him after they spend a moment saying nothing.
“Yeah.” Tsukishima agrees
They walk home without saying much at all, and Tsukishima watches Yamaguchi pick leaves off of trees they pass, turning them over and over in his fingers like a nervous tic.
++
do you want to come to Tanaka’s party with me??
Tsukishima looks down at the text from Yamaguchi on his phone screen. He weighs his options. On the one hand, Tanaka is loud, and Nishinoya is louder. He doesn’t really want to catch up with people from high school. It’ll probably be cramped.
On the other hand, Yamaguchi can make almost anything bearable. And otherwise, he’ll just spend the night trying and failing to think of anything else to do, because he’s coming to realize that being in university made him forget anything he ever enjoyed doing and replaced the memories with study strategies.
Sure, he texts back.
That’s how he finds himself at a housewarming party filled with people he hasn’t seen in four years, waiting for Yamaguchi to bring him another drink. They got there late, when everyone had already had a few, and Tsukishima scans the room idly as he waits. Tanaka, expectedly, is drunk. He’s throwing the party to celebrate finally moving out of his parents’ house and into the messy apartment they’re all squeezed into. Nishinoya isn’t far behind Tanaka, dancing poorly but confidently, and trying to drag Asahi (who looks almost exactly the same) into doing the same. Shimizu is sipping calmly at a drink with a very grown-up looking Yachi close by her side; they’re holding hands, actually, and Tsukishima smirks, because he remembers calling that one years ago. Hinata is laughing loudly near a smiling Ennoshita, and Sugawara and Daichi are tucked into a corner with Sugawara’s arm around Daichi’s waist, both of them red-faced and tipsy.
When Yamaguchi weaves back toward Tsukishima through the crowd, Tsukishima takes the offered drink and asks casually, “Was everyone on our high school volleyball team gay?”
Yamaguchi chokes with laughter on his own drink. When he recovers, he looks at Tsukishima with his eyebrows raised and a small grin still on his face. “No, some of us like women too.”
“Fair enough,” Tsukishima says.
“And Tanaka’s straight, I think.” Yamaguchi says thoughtfully.
“Are you sure about that? I used to think he and Nishinoya were a bit close.” Tsukishima says with an eyebrow raised.
“Huh.” Yamaguchi says, blinking.
“Hey, Tanaka!” He calls a minute later, and Tanaka looks over to their direction. “In high school, were you and Noya-san together?” Tsukishima raises his eyebrows, laughing at Yamaguchi’s boldness.
“Together? No,” Tanaka responds, confused. “But we made out all the time.”
Nishinoya stops dancing for a minute to high-five Tanaka excitedly. “Yeah we did!”
“Well, there you go.” Yamaguchi says to Tsukishima, shrugging and taking another sip of his drink.
They spend another two hours getting more intoxicated, and Tsukishima discovers that Yamaguchi can handle his liquor pretty well. He’s close to being drunk but Yamaguchi looks fairly unaffected, the only signs of the alcohol his pink cheeks and the way he’s smiling more than usual.
He’s watching Yamaguchi play some card game against a drunk Sugawara, with Daichi continually whispering what to do in Sugawara’s ear.
“Stop it! I can handle this, Daichi. I am amazing.” Sugawara slurs, and Daichi gives an exaggerated eye roll.
“Glasses-kun! You’re stoic as hell.” Nishinoya says loudly from somewhere behind Tsukishima. “This is a party, you know?”
“Thanks for enlightening me.” Tsukishima says, going for deadpan, but his voice must betray how much he’s had to drink because Nishinoya starts laughing at him.
“How can you look so unhappy and be drunk!” Nishinoya says through his laughter.
“I’m not drunk.” Tsukishima argues, but he thinks Nishinoya might be right about that by now. “And I’m not unhappy.”
“Well I am.” Nishinoya says dramatically, sighing loudly. “Asahi won’t sing karaoke.” Tsukishima looks over to find Asahi hovering near a plate of snacks, looking like he’s having difficulty choosing between types of crackers.
“Did you honestly expect him to?” Tsukishima asks. Asahi can barely speak without sinking into the ground with embarrassment.
“I never give up!” Nishinoya exclaims proudly.
“Well, good luck, then.” Tsukishima says. He gets another drink from a nearby table.
“How come you came, anyway? Just to stand around and grumble?” Nishinoya asks him in a voice that’s more curious than accusatory. He stands on tip-toes to do what Tsukishima assumes must be an impression of him, judging from the glare he’s putting on his face.
“No, I — I don’t know.” Tsukishima mumbles, fixing his gaze back on Yamaguchi.
Nishinoya sees his eyeline shift and laughs again, but it’s less abrasive this time. “Yeah. I figured,” he says.
Tsukishima furrows his eyebrows. He doesn’t know what that means. But he doesn’t dwell on it as Nishinoya darts away, something else evidently capturing his attention more than Tsukishima’s stoicism.
“Hey, Tsukki! I won money!” Yamaguchi calls from where he’s sitting, and Tsukishima smiles easily without really knowing why.
“Look at that face!” Hinata says in shock, and Tanaka laughs.
“Just because I don’t smile at you doesn’t mean I don’t smile, idiot.” Tsukishima responds easily.
“You’re so rude,” Hinata tells him, sticking his tongue out.
“Hey, how drunk are you?” Yamaguchi asks him through a laugh as he lets Ennoshita take his place in the card game.
“I don’t know, relatively.” Tsukishima says, and Yamaguchi laughs again.
“I’ve never seen you drunk before, I guess.”
“How does it live up to your expectations?” Tsukishima asks.
“It’s on par.” Yamaguchi says with a smile.
Tsukishima pushes his glasses up on his nose and smiles back on instinct, because seeing Yamaguchi smile always makes him want to.
“Hey! Drunk people! Gather round!” Tanaka yells from the other side of the room, and they all follow his instructions dutifully.
Tsukishima sits down on the couch that Tanaka is standing in front of, and Yamaguchi starts out a cushion away from him, but enough other people sit down that he ends up crowded into Tsukishima’s space, their thighs pressed against each other.
Tanaka is making some poorly thought-out speech about adulthood and life, but Tsukishima can’t pay attention. He’s too distracted by the warmth of Yamaguchi pressed against him, and he’s struck again by the desire to pull him closer. He wonders somewhere in the back of his mind what Yamaguchi smells like, if his hair still smells the same as Tsukishima’s pillows would smell after Yamaguchi had been lying on his bed after school.
He finishes his drink while Tanaka is still talking, and he still can’t focus on what he’s saying. Nishinoya has jumped up next to him now, and they’re going back and forth yelling things emphatically, but Tsukishima’s head is fuzzy. He’s sleepy, and Yamaguchi is warm against him, and he doesn’t know what his brain is doing anymore. He doesn’t know why he keeps fixating on the freckles on the side of Yamaguchi’s neck, or how his stupid tight jeans look good. He thought, after all this time, that he could be done with this.
Tsukishima doesn’t know how much time passes, or when his head fell onto Yamaguchi’s shoulder, but the next thing he’s aware of is Yamaguchi muttering, “Hey.”
He blinks himself out of the half-sleep he accidentally fell into, and picks his head up from the crook of Yamaguchi’s neck. “Hey,” he says back.
“I’m gonna take you home.” Yamaguchi tells him quietly, and Tsukishima blinks.
“What?” Tsukishima asks, eyebrows furrowed.
“You’re really drunk, I’m gonna walk you home, alright?” Yamaguchi says softly with a small grin.
“Oh. Okay.” Tsukishima lets Yamaguchi pull him up off the couch. There are still plenty of people in Tanaka’s apartment, but the mood is more subdued. Daichi and Sugawara have retired to an armchair, talking in soft voices to each other. Nishinoya and Asahi are kissing in a corner and Tanaka calls out, “Oi! Stop that!” from across the room toward them. Hinata seems mostly asleep on the other end of the couch.
Yamaguchi waves goodbye to an incomprehensible number of people before they’re outside, in the humid darkness. Tsukishima blinks quickly to get used to the lighting.
“You have a good time?” Yamaguchi asks him, sounding amused.
“I don’t know.” Tsukishima mutters, and Yamaguchi laughs.
They get halfway to Tsukishima’s neighborhood before he’s hit with the very sudden feeling that he doesn’t want to go home. He likes walking outside with Yamaguchi; he doesn’t want to curl up in his too-small bed yet.
“Hey,” Tsukishima says, and Yamaguchi looks over at him curiously. “Let’s stop.”
“How come?” Yamaguchi asks, watching Tsukishima walk over to the grass nearby and sit down.
Tsukishima crosses his legs on the grass. “I don’t want to go home yet. Come on. Sit with me.”
“Okay.” Yamaguchi sounds like he’s humoring him, but Tsukishima will take it. He walks over and sits down next to Tsukishima, legs spread out in front of him as he props himself up on his elbows.
It’s quiet for a minute, just the sound of bugs, before Tsukishima says, “You couldn’t see the stars in Tokyo.”
He’s looking up at the sky, and Yamaguchi sounds far away when he says, “Oh?”
“Too many lights.” Tsukishima explains. “But you can see them here.”
“I didn’t know you cared so much about astronomy.” Yamaguchi says with a small laugh.
“I don’t. It’s just strange, to have something there for your whole life, and have it gone.” Tsukishima says quietly. Yamaguchi doesn’t laugh at that.
“Kei.” He says, sighing quietly.
“Tadashi.” Tsukishima says back, looking away from the stars and at Yamaguchi’s face, which he can’t read very well.
“Come on, you should sleep this off.” Yamaguchi says, standing back up and offering a hand to Tsukishima. He takes it, pulls himself up from the grass, and lets go of it once he’s standing even though he’d rather not.
They’re quiet while they walk the rest of the way to Tsukishima’s house, quiet as they stand at the end of the driveway. Tsukishima keeps looking at Yamaguchi but Yamaguchi is avoiding his eye.
“Tadashi.” Tsukishima says again, and it makes Yamaguchi look at him. Tsukishima steps forward, closer into Yamaguchi’s space, and he lets his hand come up to rest on Yamaguchi’s shoulder, thumb running back and forth against Yamaguchi’s collarbone.
“Don’t do this, Kei.” Yamaguchi says quietly, looking up at him.
“Why not?” Tsukishima asks petulantly. He wants to kiss him, the same way he wanted to four years ago.
“Don’t do this to me.” Yamaguchi says again. “You’re not allowed to do this.”
Tsukishima lets his hand drop, and he steps back again. “Sorry.”
Yamaguchi just shakes his head, running his hand through his hair. “Goodnight, Tsukki.”
“Night,” Tsukishima says back, watching Yamaguchi walk away.
He’s still standing in the same spot three minutes later, when he mutters, “Fuck,” to himself quietly.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” He repeats, rubbing his face with his hand and walking over to his front door. “Fuck,” He mutters again when he realizes he doesn’t have his house key. He walks over to the high wooden fence blocking his backyard from view. “Fuck,” he sighs as he gets an uneasy foothold near the bottom of the wood and pulls himself up to the top. Everything is fairly under control until his foot gets caught as he’s pulling himself over to the other side of the fence into his backyard.
He falls clumsily onto the grass, the wind knocked out of him after he lands flat on his back. “Fuck!”
He hears the patio light get flicked on, followed by an extremely bright lightbulb shining directly into his eyes.
“Kei?” A voice asks, and the light above him is blocked by the figure of his brother with a baseball bat in his hand.
“Hi.” Tsukishima mutters weakly. Akiteru lowers the baseball bat and flicks the patio light back off.
“I thought you were a burglar or something.” Akiteru mutters.
“Nope. Just me.” Tsukishima says, not moving from his spot on the grass.
“You’re drunk.” Akiteru notices.
“Yes.”
“Did you forget your key?”
“Yes.” Tsukishima repeats.
“You know, the gate was unlocked. You didn’t have to climb the fence.” Akiteru says, and it sounds apologetic.
“Of course it was.” Tsukishima sighs. He closes his eyes. Maybe he’ll just sleep here.
“Are you alright?” Akiteru asks him.
“No.”
“Okay.” Akiteru says, before pulling up one of the chairs they keep on the back patio. They used to make tiny bonfires and roast marshmallows from those chairs, Tsukishima remembers errantly.
“I’m gay.” Tsukishima says, unprompted. “And don’t tell me you already knew, because that’s not fair.”
“Okay.” Akiteru repeats. “That’s fine.”
“I know it is.” Tsukishima says. His eyes are still closed.
“Are you going to tell mom?” Akiteru asks.
“Eventually. I don’t know. I’m afraid she’ll cry. I don’t want to deal with that.” Tsukishima says, sighing.
“She won’t cry.” Akiteru assures him.
“Yes she will.”
“Well, she might cry.” Akiteru amends. “But not because she’s disappointed or anything. She just cries.”
“Yeah. I know.” Tsukishima says.
They’re quiet for a moment.
“I thought I was over him.” Tsukishima says quietly, desperately. “I hadn’t even seen him in years. How is that fair?”
“Running away from things doesn’t make them go away, Kei.” Akiteru says carefully.
Tsukishima scowls, his eyes still closed as he lies on his back in the grass. “Oh, shut up. Acting all wise and mighty.”
Akiteru laughs. “Well, of the two of us, who fell drunk on their ass tonight?”
“Shut up.” Tsukishima mutters again.
“Come on, get up.” Akiteru says, standing up from his chair and walking over to him. He nudges Tsukishima’s shoulder with his foot.
“No. Leave me here to rot.” Tsukishima whines, and Akiteru kicks him.
“You’re so dramatic.” Akiteru mutters as he leans down and pulls Tsukishima up by the hand.
He lets Akiteru lead him inside, brushing the dirt off of his back before they walk in the house. Akiteru pushes him into his bedroom, and Tsukishima collapses onto his bed without bothering to change out of his clothes.
“Thanks,” Tsukishima mutters blearily as Akiteru walks out of his room.
“Yeah, of course.” Akiteru says, like getting woken up at 3 A.M. by his drunk little brother’s emotional crises is just part of a day’s work.
He takes his glasses off, setting them on his bedside table, and closes his eyes heavily. “Fuck,” he mumbles one last time before falling asleep.
++
The sun is trying to kill him. At least, that’s the theory he puts together as he rolls over and puts his pillow over his head, blocking out the light from the window. After a few seconds he realizes he’s still wearing jeans, and he groans quietly to himself as he remembers the night before.
Maybe he just won’t ever get out of bed. Maybe he’ll just slowly die of starvation next to his stupid dinosaur figures instead of ever confronting Yamaguchi again.
“Oh good, you’re awake.” He hears muffled through his pillow. Akiteru. “It’s two in the afternoon.”
He groans loudly in response.
“Right. Well I’m going home, but good luck with that.” Akiteru says with a laugh, but Tsukishima doesn’t hear him leave.
“Seriously, though. You’ll be okay.” Akiteru says a minute later, walking over and moving the pillow from Tsukishima’s head.
“Thanks,” Tsukishima mutters, rolling over onto his back and glancing up at his brother, blurry without his glasses. Akiteru smiles down at him kindly before walking out of the room, and Tsukishima sighs.
He doesn’t know what the fuck to do, is the problem. His options for advice are limited by the hard fact that he doesn’t have many friends. He could ask his brother, but he just left, and he spent the night before on counseling duty; Kuroo would make fun of him for, potentially, the rest of their lives.
There’s Kenma.
Don’t tell Kuroo about this. he types out on his phone, trying to ignore his headache.
Thirty seconds after he presses send he gets a response. what did you do
Fucked everything up maybe he sends back. He’s not looking forward to typing out the mess of the night before.
with freckles? Kenma responds. Sometimes, the weird ultra-observant mind-reader thing comes in handy with Kenma.
I tried to kiss him I think, or I almost kissed him. Tsukishima sends off, sighing.
you think? Kenma replies. Tsukishima can picture him, typing out fast replies from the spot on the couch he likes best.
I was drunk. Tsukishima sighs again.
jesus christ, you’re a mess without us
Shut up. Tsukishima types out.
ok jerk. what happened, did he reject you?? Kenma asks.
He told me not to kiss him and then he went home. It makes his cheeks flush to remember, how stupid he was, the way Yamaguchi shook his head.
His phone starts ringing, Kenma’s name on the screen.
“Hello?” He asks, confused.
“What did he say exactly?” Kenma asks.
“You hate talking on the phone.” Tsukishima mutters. His brain is still two steps behind him, fuzzy from his hangover.
“I am trying to help best piece back together your sad, broken life, Kei.” Kenma says in a flat voice.
Tsukishima sighs again.
“What did he say exactly?” Kenma repeats.
“He said ‘don’t do this to me’,” Tsukishima says quietly.
“Huh.” Kenma says.
“What?”
“Well, it’s not really a rejection, is it? More like, you’re drunk and I don’t know what the hell you’re doing, so stop.” Kenma says easily.
“You got that from five words?” Tsukishima asks incredulously.
Kenma sighs impatiently. “You’re like, in love with him, right?”
“I don’t know.” Tsukishima says quietly, blushing.
Kenma’s quiet on the other end, like he’s waiting for the right answer.
“Probably.” Tsukishima concedes, rolling his eyes.
“Then stop being so dumb and go talk to him.” Kenma says.
“What if he’s angry with me?” Tsukishima whines.
“He probably will be, since you decided to try and resolve some lifelong unspoken crap while you were wasted.” Kenma replies casually.
“How do you know everything?” Tsukishima asks, annoyed.
“You’re very transparent and I’m very smart.” Kenma says.
“Don’t tell Kuroo about this.” Tsukishima urges him again.
“Why, so he doesn’t know you’re falling all over yourself about this boy? Like Kuroo doesn’t already know you’re terrible at feelings?”
“I’m fine at feelings.” Tsukishima grumbles.
“The first time Kuroo kissed me he literally ran away afterwards. He ran out of my house.” Kenma says. “I know what terrible at feelings looks like.”
“He ran away?” Tsukishima asks, laughing.
“Well, I didn’t stop him, so. Maybe I’m not much better at it.” Kenma says.
“How messy is the kitchen now that I’m gone?” Tsukishima asks to make himself feel better.
“Yesterday Kuroo washed a dish.” Kenma reports sadly.
“Oh, an entire dish? He’s really growing, as a person.” Tsukishima says sarcastically.
“Shut up and go sort your life out.” Kenma mutters.
“I’ll try.” Tsukishima replies.
“Good luck, dummy.” Kenma says before hanging up.
Tsukishima puts his pillow back over his head.
++
When he knocks on Yamaguchi’s door, he feels incomparably stupid. He tried to make himself look alright, but he knows there are bags under his eyes and his head is still killing him. He hopes it’s early enough that Yamaguchi’s parents aren’t home, and what a high school thought that is. He feels so, so stupid.
Yamaguchi’s little sister opens the door and stares at him with an eyebrow raised.
“Hi, Harumi-chan.” He says, trying to sound friendly. She looks unimpressed.
“Tadashi’s upstairs.” She tells him before walking off to rejoin a group of high school girls sitting around the living room; they all stare at him while he takes his shoes off.
Tsukishima waves at them as he walks up the stairs, and they all glance around at each other like they’re sharing a secret. He doesn’t understand girls.
He knocks on Yamaguchi’s bedroom door quietly, and gets a muffled “Yeah?” as a response.
“Harumi, did you — oh,” Yamaguchi starts before turning around and seeing Tsukishima instead of his sister.
“Hi.” Tsukishima says lamely, shoving his hands into his pockets awkwardly.
“Hey.” Yamaguchi says, sitting down at the end of his bed. “How you feeling?”
“Shitty.” Tsukishima mutters, and it makes a smile flicker across Yamaguchi’s face.
They’re quiet, and Tsukishima shifts back and forth on the balls of his feet nervously. “I — I’m sorry.”
Yamaguchi looks up at him. “What are you apologizing for?”
“For — I shouldn’t have done that. Last night.” Tsukishima says. He’s not sure what Yamaguchi’s asking.
“What shouldn’t you have done?” Yamaguchi presses him. He’s looking up at Tsukishima with a sharp gaze. “Just say it. One time, say it.”
“I wanted to kiss you. I shouldn’t have tried.” Tsukishima says, flustered. He feels his cheeks flush and he wishes he didn’t blush so easily.
Yamaguchi nods at him, but he doesn’t say anything. Tsukishima feels more awkward by the second, just standing in the middle of Yamaguchi’s bedroom with neither of them speaking.
“You’re the one who left. You know?” Yamaguchi says, looking down at the floor. “It’s not fair to come back here and — and say some shit about not having me. Make a move like nothing’s changed. You’re the one who left.”
“I know.” Tsukishima says, his stomach churning with guilt.
“You left and you stopped trying. That sucks, Tsukki. It really sucks when you stop trying.” Yamaguchi continues, looking back up at him. “It was always hard to watch you give up on everything, and then you gave up on me too.”
He doesn’t know what to say to that.
“You were my best friend, Tsukki.” Yamaguchi says.
“You’re the only best friend I’ve ever had.” Tsukishima says back, looking away from where Yamaguchi is sitting on his bed. He looks small and sad, and Tsukishima’s stomach hurts.
“I don’t know what to do with that.” Yamaguchi tells him with a sigh. “I don’t know what to do with last night, either. I don’t know with you.”
Tsukishima walks over to Yamaguchi’s bed and sits down on the other side, facing Yamaguchi’s back. “This doesn’t make it better, but. I was scared, after high school.”
“Scared of what?” Yamaguchi asks.
“Of how much I liked you.” Tsukishima admits, running his hand through his hair. Yamaguchi turns to look at him.
“Funny way of showing it.” Yamaguchi says with something like a laugh.
“I was stupid. I was seventeen.” Tsukishima says. “And — and maybe I’m still not much better, but. I’m trying to be.”
“So what happens if I kiss you right now, and then you get offered a job in Tokyo in two weeks?” Yamaguchi asks.
“I don’t know.” Tsukishima says. “But if I’m being honest, I stopped applying to jobs in Tokyo the first day we saw each other again.”
“Oh.” Yamaguchi says.
“I think I might be in love with you. ” Tsukishima says quietly.
“You’re bad at this.” Yamaguchi tells him, but he’s almost smiling.
“Yeah. I’m really bad at this.” Tsukishima says back with a laugh.
“You know I’ve wanted to kiss you since I was thirteen?” Yamaguchi asks.
“Then do it already.” Tsukishima tells him, and Yamaguchi laughs.
He shifts from his spot at the edge of his bed, half-crawls over to sit in front of Tsukishima. Their faces are close, and Yamaguchi’s freckles blur in Tsukishima’s vision.
“You really got cute at university.” Yamaguchi breathes, biting his lip.
“I’m not sure if that’s a compliment.” Tsukishima replies.
“Shut up,” Yamaguchi whispers before he leans forward and presses his lips against Tsukishima’s.
The angle is awkward, but Tsukishima feels like he just got hit by a truck, his head spinning from the impact of Yamaguchi against him. His own heartbeat sounds loud and when Yamaguchi pulls back, both of them are letting out shaky breaths. Yamaguchi reaches out and takes Tsukishima’s glasses off, and it makes Tsukishima grin weakly before Yamaguchi pushes him back against the bed.
There’s a clatter of plastic against wood when Yamaguchi sets the glasses down, and then just the sound of their breathing as Yamaguchi settles on top of him, a hand on Tsukishima’s jaw as their lips connect again. A small noise escapes Yamaguchi’s mouth when Tsukishima parts his lips to bite at Yamaguchi’s bottom lip, and then Yamaguchi’s tongue is in his mouth.
And if Tsukishima’s heart wasn’t beating out of his chest, if his hands weren’t trembling while they rested on Yamaguchi’s back, he would laugh at how much he feels like a seventeen year-old, kissing in Yamaguchi’s bedroom while his sister is downstairs.
Yamaguchi pulls back after some time, lips red and breathing heavy. “I think I’m in love with you too, just for the record.”
“Good to know.” Tsukishima swallows, fingertips pressing down where they’re resting at the back of Yamaguchi’s ribcage.
Yamaguchi smiles down at him, leaning down to kiss him again, and Tsukishima feels himself smile back, making their teeth clack together awkwardly. Yamaguchi laughs at the sound and tucks his head into the crook of Tsukishima’s neck.
“I don’t think I ever told you how much I like your freckles.” Tsukishima says quietly.
Yamaguchi pulls his head back to look at him.
“I always — just — they’re cute. They’re really cute.” Tsukishima stutters, awkward under Yamaguchi’s gaze.
“You’re such a dork.” Yamaguchi says quietly, kissing his cheek.
“Hey.” Tsukishima says, offended.
“Thanks.” Yamaguchi replies, smiling at him.
Something in Tsukishima’s chest aches with Yamaguchi on top of him, looking down warm and fond. It’s a good kind of hurt, and it makes him feel full in the places in his ribcage that usually stay empty.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Yamaguchi asks a moment later, laughing quietly.
“I’m happy.” Tsukishima says back, and Yamaguchi kisses his cheek again.
“Me too.” He says, pulling back and resting his head under Tsukishima’s chin.
++
“When is your mom coming home?” Yamaguchi asks in a breathy voice with Tsukishima’s mouth at his neck.
Tsukishima didn’t date anyone in high school, but he imagines this is what it would have been like if he had.
“Tomorrow,” Tsukishima breathes against Yamaguchi’s skin, and Yamaguchi tilts his head back further against Tsukishima’s bed.
His mother’s out of town, on the same day trip she takes with her group of mom-aged friends every summer, and he tried not to feel like a sixteen year-old when he immediately invited Yamaguchi over. The problem with living at home is that your parents also live there, and your siblings are somehow an ever-present threat. Tsukishima and Yamaguchi are twenty-one but they’ve been acting like chaste teenagers, hiding behind bedroom doors and never getting very far out of the fear of someone walking in.
“My parents already know about me,” Yamaguchi told him easily a week into being together. “I’ve brought boys home before, to meet them.”
“Oh?” Tsukishima asked, eyebrows raised.
“What, are you jealous of my stupid university boyfriends?” Yamaguchi laughed, and Tsukishima rolled his eyes.
“One of them drove a motorcycle. He was much cooler than you.” Yamaguchi teased, and Tsukishima glared at him before Yamaguchi leaned over and kissed him as an apology.
Getting re-introduced to Yamaguchi’s parents as a boyfriend was slightly awkward, but manageable; he had known them for most of his life, and they seemed fine enough with it. But there’s a line between “We’re fine with you dating our son” and “Please, feel free to have sex in his bedroom,” Tsukishima guesses, and they haven’t felt up to finding out which side Yamaguchi’s parents stood on.
He’s still trying to figure out how he should tell his mother, when he should tell her. Akiteru kept telling him to just get it over with, but that was always Akiteru’s motto, not his. His own method of confronting emotional topics was a careful mixture of avoidance and denial, and he had managed to make it work all these years.
So this, Tsukishima’s hands under Yamaguchi’s shirt and Yamaguchi’s leg slotted between his own, is the farthest they had gotten in their relationship. So he decides not to waste time now that they have a moment alone, and he moves his hand down Yamaguchi’s torso toward the button of his jeans. Yamaguchi’s back arches at Tsukishima’s hands on his stomach, and he moves from Yamaguchi’s neck back to his mouth. Yamaguchi bites at Tsukishima’s lip and it makes him gasp, fingers blindly unbuttoning Yamaguchi’s jeans. When he pulls down the zipper Yamaguchi lifts his hips and Tsukishima pushes desperately at the denim, trying to lower them.
“Your stupid skinny jeans,” He mutters, lifting himself off of Yamaguchi and sitting back on his heels to pull Yamaguchi’s jeans down. Yamaguchi laughs breathily but helps shimmy them the rest of the way off and they fall in a crumpled ball onto Tsukishima’s floor. He swallows at the sight of Yamaguchi laid out in front of him, t-shirt rucked up above the hem of purple boxer-briefs that are pulling tight against his erection.
“Hey, stop staring at me,” Yamaguchi says, laughing quietly again. “And take your shirt off.”
“You look good,” Tsukishima murmurs, his voice lower than he expected. He pulls his shirt over his head and tosses it in the same direction that Yamaguchi’s jeans went.
“So do you.” Yamaguchi tells him as he leans back down. Tsukishima settles back down on top of Yamaguchi and their hips press together, both of them making small noises at the contact. Yamaguchi’s hips buck, looking for more friction, and he grinds against Tsukishima’s thigh with a choked moan. Tsukishima’s hand moves to anchor Yamaguchi’s hips against the bed, and Yamaguchi groans in disappointment.
“Kei,” He whines, trying to move his hips up again, but Tsukishima moves his hand to cup Yamaguchi’s dick through his underwear. Yamaguchi’s head slams back again as he gasps, and his hands move to the waistband of the basketball shorts Tsukishima is still wearing, clumsily pulling them down. Tsukishima awkwardly kicks them off his feet, pulling back the waistband of Yamaguchi’s boxer-briefs and making Yamaguchi squirm underneath him.
Tsukishima looks down, strangely aware that this is the first time he’s ever seen Yamaguchi naked after knowing him for ten years. He has errant freckles across his torso and the tops of his thighs, a few trailing over his hipbones; his cock is hard against his stomach and Tsukishima swallows again.
“You take too long.” Yamaguchi mutters before flipping them over, kicking off his own underwear and pulling down Tsukishima’s boxers quickly. Tsukishima blinks, on his back with Yamaguchi leaning overtop of him.
“I was just — you’re pretty,” Tsukishima says quietly, and Yamaguchi’s cheeks flush.
“Thanks,” He says sheepishly, lowering himself to rest on his elbows and kiss Tsukishima slowly. Tsukishima’s hand settles on Yamaguchi’s waist, but he wedges his other hand between them to wrap around Yamaguchi’s dick.
Yamaguchi makes a noise in the back of his throat, gasping into their kiss as Tsukishima’s hand twists up and down slowly. His hand brushes against his own erection and his hips jut forward unconsciously with a small gasp, his hand losing grip on Yamaguchi.
They go on grinding against each other and breathing too heavily to kiss until Yamaguchi pulls away, the loss of friction making Tsukishima open his eyes and look up.
Yamaguchi is hovering above him, cheeks flushed and biting his lip. “Do you have lube?”
“Oh.” Tsukishima says eloquently, making Yamaguchi laugh. “Yeah. In that drawer.”
He points to his bedside table and Yamaguchi leans over, stretched half across Tsukishima and half across the bed on his stomach. He kicks his legs up and crosses his ankles like he’s just relaxing, not lying naked on top of his boyfriend, and Tsukishima grins.
“You’re cute, you know that?” Tsukishima asks, his hand running down the curve of Yamaguchi’s back.
Yamaguchi hums and tucks his hair behind his ear with his free hand as he rifles through the drawer, glancing back at Tsukishima with a smile. “I do know, but I like hearing it.” He finds the bottle and a condom in the back of the drawer where Tsukishima had shoved them some time ago (because he believes in careful planning, even if he’s not sure what he’s planning for) and he moves back over to Tsukishima, smiling down at him.
“You’re cute.” Tsukishima says again. He’s not good at this usually, at affection and saying the things he thinks are embarrassing. He’s trying to be better at it.
“I like you.” Yamaguchi says back close to Tsukishima’s ear, kissing his jaw. He presses the bottle into Tsukishima’s hand, pulls back to look down at him with a shy grin.
“Tadashi,” Tsukishima says quietly a few minutes later, “This would be easier if you weren’t on top of me.” His arm is strained at an angle with his fingers inside of Yamaguchi, who’s panting into Tsukishima’s collarbone.
Yamaguchi doesn’t respond, just keeps breathing heavy against Tsukishima’s skin. Yamaguchi squirms on top of Tsukishima’s stomach and he has to stop himself from trying to get more friction against his own dick. He can’t remember the last time he was this hard, aching from it.
“Are you good?” He asks Yamaguchi, who nods weakly, and Tsukishima pulls his fingers out of Yamaguchi.
Yamaguchi makes a noise at the loss before pulling himself up to straddle Tsukishima’s lap; there’s a ripping of foil and the awkward moment of lining things up that always happens at moments like this, and then Yamaguchi is lowering himself down onto Tsukishima, who can’t help but let out a choked moan. They stay still for a minute, Yamaguchi getting used to it and Tsukishima trying not to lose his mind from the feeling of Yamaguchi tight around him. He almost calms himself down, steadies his breathing well enough, until Yamaguchi starts rocking, leaning forward until they’re almost pressed flush together again as he finds a rhythm. Then he’s back to gasping, making broken noises in the back of his throat and not being able to stop them. Yamaguchi’s panting too, but it sounds far-away over the rush of blood in his ears. He’s more aware of the way Yamaguchi’s elbows are trembling where he’s trying to hold himself up.
“Tadashi,” Tsukishima mutters again, and it comes out strangled and low. “Hey.”
Yamaguchi pauses above him, pushing the hair back off his forehead and looking down. Tsukishima considers talking but the idea sounds exhausting, so he just turns them on their sides without much warning. They both gasp at the new angle and Yamaguchi leans forward and kisses him lightly now that it’s easier. Yamaguchi’s breathing is louder in his ear now and all he can hear is the two of them losing their breath, his own heartbeat, the low noises Yamaguchi starts to make when Tsukishima thrusts into him harder.
Tsukishima reaches between them to find Yamaguchi’s dick, hard and leaking, and take it in his hand. Yamaguchi moans loud and surprised, burying his face in Tsukishima’s chest. They both start to come apart at the seams a bit, Tsukishima stroking Yamaguchi in time with the movement of his hips and feeling himself getting closer, Yamaguchi making small incoherent sounds and tightening around Tsukishima.
Yamaguchi comes without warning, gasping around something that sounds like “Kei,” before spilling over Tsukishima’s hand. His forehead comes up to press against Tsukishima’s while he shakes through it, eyes squeezed shut and breathing ragged.
“C’mon,” Yamaguchi breathes a moment later, when he’s lying mostly still. Tsukishima’s trying to go slow, to not overwhelm him, but he’s aching. “C’mon, you too.”
It’s all Tsukishima needs to stop holding himself back, to go faster while Yamaguchi kisses at his open mouth, one of his hands on Tsukishima’s nipple. It’s only a few moments before Tsukishima thrusts into his own orgasm, going stiff with Yamaguchi’s hands all over him, mouth on his neck. He can’t focus on any of it, like so much static in his ears while he grips Yamaguchi’s shoulder too tightly. When he comes down from his own haze, he realizes Yamaguchi’s fingers are running through his hair softly, and something about that makes him feel comfortable. He opens his eyes slowly and Yamaguchi is looking at him with such a concentrated fondness, and it’s sweet. Yamaguchi is sweet.
“Hey,” Yamaguchi says quietly with a laugh.
Tsukishima smiles. “Hi.” He pulls out of Yamaguchi belatedly, Yamaguchi wincing at the action, and ties off the condom, rolling over to throw it in the trash next to his bed.
He rolls onto his back, and Yamaguchi moves so he’s sprawled over half of Tsukishima’s body, arm around his middle and head on his chest. Mostly by accident, they fall asleep to the rhythm of their chests rising and falling against each other.
Later, when it’s dark out and they’re awake, standing in Tsukishima’s family kitchen in their underwear. Yamaguchi made ramen and they lean against the counters to eat it, Tsukishima trying not to think about his mom making dinner where Yamaguchi is leaning. It’s comfortable, laughing and talking quietly like they’re trying not to wake anyone in the barely-lit house. Being with Yamaguchi is comfortable, which isn’t an adjective he’d ever used to describe relationships before. They were always firmly uncomfortable, he was always left second-guessing what he said, how he acted; every time he tried to date anyone it was like posing for a photograph and suddenly forgetting how you usually hold yourself, what to do with your hands.
But this was easy. Yamaguchi taking off his glasses for him every time they kissed, and knowing when to laugh at Yamaguchi and when to compliment him. It was like they had re-learned each other in the month they were back in each others’ orbit and now it was all second-nature again.
They don’t mean to stay up late but they do, lying against each other in Tsukishima’s bed. Yamaguchi starts talking about his internship, worrying over it, and Tsukishima remembers something he forgot to mention earlier.
“I have two job interviews in Sendai next week.”
“Really?” Yamaguchi asks him, looking up from where he’s piled against Tsukishima’s shoulder.
“Yeah.” Tsukishima replies. Yamaguchi smiles.
“Cool.” Yamaguchi says quietly with a grin. “I’ll come with you, if you want. I know all the good bars.”
Yamaguchi’s half-joking, Tsukishima can tell — offering it up so he could laugh it off if he wants to. But he doesn’t want to. “Yeah. You should.” It means something, probably, how easy that came out of his mouth, but he doesn’t have the energy to analyze it. He’s happy.
++
He’s woken up by the far-away sound of a door closing, and a voice calling, “Kei?”
He doesn’t have the energy to open his eyes, so he doesn’t. The sun is coming in through the open window-shades, beating down on him. He’s distantly aware of being too warm, and shirtless. Then Yamaguchi shifts, his face in the crook of Tsukishima’s neck, and he remembers where he is. He starts to question the voice calling his name.
And in his sleep haze, he puts it together slower than he could hope to before he hears his mother’s footsteps nearing his bedroom door. When he understands, when he has the sense to freak out, he jolts suddenly, waking Yamaguchi up with a confused noise.
They’re still pressed together, mostly naked, when Tsukishima’s door opens and his mother starts a normal sentence. “Kei? It’s almost noon, and —”
When her gaze falls on them, she stops talking, and Tsukishima doesn’t think he’s ever blushed harder in his life.
Yamaguchi breaks the silence, looking nervously toward the doorway. “Hi, Tsukishima-san.”
Tsukishima’s life flashes in front of his eyes. His mother is still standing speechless.
“Hi, mom.” Tsukishima manages weakly. “I’m gay.”
His mother nods slowly, and then starts to laugh. “Well, this was quite a way to tell me.”
Yamaguchi laughs nervously and Tsukishima thinks this might be it. This might be the humiliation that pushes him into dying from embarrassment on the spot.
“Do you two want breakfast?” She asks them, still laughing.
“I — what.” Tsukishima stutters, reeling.
“I’ll make breakfast.” She says decisively, turning out of the bedroom.
The door closes and Tsukishima blinks.
“What is happening?” Yamaguchi asks, looking at Tsukishima like he has any idea.
“I think it went okay.” Tsukishima mutters, overwhelmed.
Half an hour later, his mother calls them down to a full breakfast, steam rising from three bowls of rice and soup.
“Thank you, Tsukishima-san.” Yamaguchi says earnestly, sitting down at the kitchen table in front of the food.
His mother smiles. “Of course, Yamaguchi-san. Did you just graduate as well?”
Yamaguchi smiles back and they begin a mind-numbingly normal conversation, about school and jobs and not the fact that his mother had just walked in on this boy shirtless on top of her son. Tsukishima thinks maybe this whole day is a very strange dream.
But his mother keeps smiling at Tsukishima, small and just for him and kind, and he guesses this is her way of accepting this. And he is thankful again for the way his family has never made him explain things when he didn’t want to.
He eats his breakfast, and he smiles back at his mother.
++ ++ ++
He’s supposed to be packing.
Instead, he’s sitting on his bedroom floor watching Yamaguchi root around in his dresser drawers, pull out objects and laugh at them.
“This is junk, right?” Yamaguchi asks, holding up an old notebook.
“I don’t know. Let me see it.” Tsukishima says.
“No, you never throw anything away.” Yamaguchi accuses in a teasing voice.
“I throw things away.” He mutters defensively.
Yamaguchi laughs. “C’mon, it’s been sitting in here since high school. Just let me toss it.”
Tsukishima rolls his eyes but waves his hand relentingly, and Yamaguchi drops it into the throw-away pile.
“Are you even going to help or am I just packing up your room for you?” Yamaguchi asks, flopping backwards onto Tsukishima’s bed and letting his head hang next to where Tsukishima is sitting.
“I was just going to see how long it took you to ask.” Tsukishima says with a wry grin, and Yamaguchi sticks his tongue out at him.
Tsukishima scoffs, and Yamaguchi leans toward him to kiss him with his head still upside-down. When he pulls back, he says simply, “You’re lazy.”
“That’s fair.” Tsukishima decides, sighing before standing up and edging his way around the boxes on his floor to help with the effort.
His bedroom is offensively hot, late August humidity settling into the air and making it unbearable. And it figures that their air conditioning is out the week he’s trying to move all of his belongings across the prefecture.
“Dinosaurs?” Yamaguchi asks him, standing near the shelf the figures are still sitting on.
Tsukishima sighs. “Keep.”
Yamaguchi raises his eyebrows and smiles, and Tsukishima shrugs. They get tossed lightly into the keep box.
They stay at it for another few hours, until five boxes are packed and hauled into the back of the car Yamaguchi’s borrowed the past few nights to drive from Sendai to pick up Tsukishima’s things.
“Tomorrow!” Yamaguchi says excitedly on the street outside of Tsukishima’s house, arms wrapped around the back of Tsukishima’s neck.
“Tomorrow.” Tsukishima says back with a grin, leaning in to kiss him.
“There’s a cat that keeps coming around. I think the last tenants used to feed it or something, it comes by every morning.” Yamaguchi says as he closes the trunk, making sure it shuts all the way.
Tsukishima tries to imagine a world where Yamaguchi wasn’t also feeding that stray cat. He gives it a week until it’s sleeping in the apartment.
“I like cats.” He shrugs. He wonders if somewhere in Tokyo at that moment, Kuroo felt a chill go up his spine.
“I’ll see you soon!” Yamaguchi calls, waving as he gets in the car, and Tsukishima waves back, grinning and content in the dark.
He wakes up the next morning to texts from Kuroo and Kenma in a group chat.
Kuroo: Is today the day?? r u moving into ur gay apartment?
Kenma: i thought ours was the gay apartment
Kuroo: Its our gay apartment, this is theirs. Anyway congrats u fucking weirdo!!!! Fuck in every room 2 christen it
Kenma: or...don’t. in case we ever come visit.
Tsukishima blinks down at his phone. Are you guys sending these from right next to each other?
It’s nine in the morning and the last message was sent at 3 A.M., but the three dots immediately pop up, followed by a string of tongue-sticking-out emojis sent from Kuroo’s phone. He turns his phone screen off.
Tsukishima pulls himself out of bed to look at the pile of boxes still sitting on his floor, the strange sight of his childhood bedroom almost completely empty.
“Hey,” Akiteru says through the bedroom door. “Get ready to go, Kei.”
He calls back in agreement and shakes himself out of his reverie, pulling on the clothes he set out for the day. It’s weird, is all. Weirder than moving to Tokyo, the morning of that move, even though Tokyo was three hours further away than Sendai. That had been planned; he knew it was happening for almost a year, and the pros and cons had been reasoned out a thousand times.
Moving to Sendai to live with a boy he had been dating for three months, well. That was something else entirely.
“This is a little soon, isn’t it?” His mother asked him, a worried crinkle between her eyebrows.
Tsukishima had nodded. “I’ve never done anything spontaneous in my whole life, really. But I think this is right. I love him.”
The confession made him blush, and his mother looked at him, appraising. “You have good sense. You should trust yourself.”
Later, she told him, “I’m proud of you.”
Now he’s sitting in the backseat of his brother’s car, his boxes piled around him while Akiteru and their mom talk in the front seat. It’s only a forty-minute drive to Sendai, and the address of the apartment Tsukishima’s only seen once is plugged into the GPS.
“Your job starts next Monday, right?” His mother asks him from the front seat, and he tears his gaze away from the trees on the side of the road.
“Yeah,” He says back. A position at an accounting firm that pays well and is absolutely everything Tsukishima planned on.
(“It’s possible that we’re not very cool,” Yamaguchi said when he was ordering a new labcoat for his internship the week before. U guys are fucking nerds, Kuroo texted him later that week.)
He expects Yamaguchi to be at work, but when Tsukishima is carrying two of his boxes up to the door of the apartment (his apartment, their apartment, he keeps reminding himself, and it gives him a weird jolt in his stomach every time) he realizes there’s music playing inside. His mom and brother are still standing near the car, trying to move the seats forward, so he sets down his boxes near the unlocked door and walks in.
The apartment looks smaller with furniture in it, Yamaguchi’s slightly beat-up couch from his university apartment and the TV Tsukishima brought home from Tokyo set up in the living room. But he mostly focuses on Yamaguchi sitting on the floor unpacking boxes, a cat sleeping in his lap while he hums along to the upbeat pop song playing.
“Oh! You’re here.” Yamaguchi says, looking up at him with a grin. “Welcome home.”
And he doesn’t know what to say to that, because it tugs at something in his chest. So he just smiles and pulls out his phone, takes a picture of Yamaguchi and the stupid stray cat, making Yamaguchi laugh.
He sends the picture to his group chat with Kuroo and Kenma and walks over to where Yamaguchi is still sitting on the floor.
“What’s the cat’s name?” Tsukishima asks.
Yamaguchi shrugs. “Doesn’t have one yet. We can name it.”
“Yeah.” Tsukishima grins, and he hears Yamaguchi’s voice say “welcome home” again.
The way the sun is coming in the window makes the whole room look soft, and it’s cluttered with little pieces of their separate pasts all taken out of their boxes without a new place to go. Yamaguchi’s hair is tied back in a ponytail but it still keeps falling in his eyes, and there’s cat hair all over his lap. Home. He could get used to that.
Kuroo texts him back later, we've been replaced!!!!
They name the cat Hana, and most nights it sleeps on their heads and he wakes up with cat hair in his mouth.
Home.