Chapter Text
The evolution of land plants and animals is pivotal to the success of all organisms. The earliest land plants played major roles in the rise of oxygen levels to their modern abundance, a key event that paved the way for the survival of organisms today (Lenton et al., 2016). On the other hand, vertebrates represent the bulk of most carnivorous diets, and some invertebrates are employed in the testing of medical equipment and vaccines (Monks, 2015). The characteristics of plants and animals have not only aided in their own survival, but have also been utilized in modern applications to benefit other organisms.
He punctuates his final sentence with a sigh. He’s been working on his final essay for three hours straight, but he still isn’t even halfway through the required page count. He stretches out his legs from under the desk, flinching at every pop his joints make. After sitting hunched over a laptop for hours, his muscles were bound to stiffen.
Pop, his neck tells him, as he rolls it.
Pop pop pop, his fingers say, as he cracks his knuckles in front of him.
You’ve only written 600 words in the past three hours, he tells himself, as his eyes bear holes on the open document.
“Too slow, Kageyama!” Yamaguchi is instantly snapped out of his reverie by his roommate’s loud yelling across their dorm room. The former watches as Hinata’s avatar sends a combination attack on his opponent’s body, effectively knocking the enemy out and winning the match. He let outs a whoop and jumps, hitting his head on the low ceiling.
Like most dorm rooms, theirs is tiny and can barely fit their growing bodies, much less the hordes of items they’d brought from home. Two beds lie opposite each other and about a meter apart, both pushed against the wall they’re closest to, with one by the window and one by the door. The beds each house small desks at the foots, with barely enough room to fit three hardcover books and a laptop at the same time. Hinata and Yamaguchi slowly learned to live in the small space they’d been given, from carefully scheduling shower hours to stacking books and forging a makeshift stand for the TV.
Hinata, however, could never break his habit of jumping high when he was happy, and the ugly marks on the ceiling were unpleasant testaments.
“Dumbass!” Kageyama yells, his voice struggling against the victor’s jubilant cheers, unhindered by the head-to-ceiling collision. “You’re going to break your dorm room!”
“Jealous because I won again, Kageyama-kun?” Hinata says, his voice a sing-song on the honorific. Kageyama and he, too, have been occupied for the past three hours, eyes glued to the small TV they’d managed to fit in the tiny room, backs leaning against the bed. “Don’t worry, don’t worry! If you practice a little more, I’m sure you’ll beat me. Or maybe a lot more.”
Kageyama glares at him. “That was only the third time, you – ah! Yamaguchi!” He says, noticing Yamaguchi’s staring.
The latter yelps at being caught. “Don’t mind me,” he says, a sheepish grin emerging on his face. “I just needed a short break, is all.”
“Yama-chan! You’ve been working on that essay for hours. Can’t you have fun for just a little while?” Hinata pouts. If this were any other time, Yamaguchi, a man who could spend hours just trying to beat his personal best on Mario Kart, would probably take the bait and ask for the third console controller. This time, however, Yamaguchi is a man who put off writing the single most important essay of the semester until the last minute.
“Sorry, Hinata. This is due Friday, so I have about four days to cram a 25-page essay worth forty percent of my biology grade.”
Kageyama whistles, one low and drawn-out. Yamaguchi is glad for the sympathy.
“Fine,” Hinata says. “Kageyama and I’ll just play until you get jealous and beg to join us.”
“Thanks for understanding, Hinata.” The three return to their prior engagements. After a few minutes, even the duo’s yells are quieted, and the only sounds in the dorm room are Yamaguchi’s sporadic typing and the tranquil background music of the new game Hinata loaded the console with.
After a few more minutes, there is only darkness.
“Oh, god, no –“ Yamaguchi scrambles to grab his phone after the initial shock of the blackout, his hands fumbling on the screen until the flash turns on. “You okay, guys?” He turns his phone towards the other side of the room, where Hinata and Kageyama are still sitting on the floor.
“Yeah, we’re fine.”
“Have nothing to do for the next hour, though.” Hinata supplies, though all three of them know what the duo would want to do even more than play video games.
“Wanna play volleyball?” Kageyama hasn’t even finished asking his question when Hinata agrees, his hands already struggling to tie his shoelaces with the limited light they have.
“Suga-san! Daichi-san! Are you busy!” Hinata yells in the hall, earning a chorus of shut up! in multitudes from students in other rooms.
Yamaguchi sighs, protests of it’s already 7 stuck in the back of his throat. “Just be back before 9, Hinata. I don’t want a repeat of the last time you stayed at the courts until midnight.”
“Yes, Yama! Good luck on your essay!” Hinata and Kageyama speed off, leaving no proof of their stay apart from the two controller wires thoroughly tangled in each other.
Yamaguchi settles in his uncomfortable plastic chair, left arm holding his phone as he raises it to illuminate the laptop’s keyboard while he types.
When he is two more sentences in, he finds that he doesn’t have enough downloaded material to provide enough evidence for his essay’s claims, ignoring the sudden ping and pop-up window at the corner of his monitor.
When he is seven more sentences in, he realizes that one of the articles he’s been using as a reference has outdated information.
When he is two more paragraphs in, he rereads the content he was able to write.
His laptop alerts him four more times before it suddenly shuts down, and Yamaguchi is cloaked in black for the second time that night.
The Starbucks is freezing cold and excruciatingly hot all at once. The air conditioner releases cold air at full blast, but the bodies squeezing together in similar attempts to feel the slightest chill exude a warmth painfully evident the second Yamaguchi walks in. The scent of sweat and deodorant mingled with the bitter odor of brewing coffee isn't lost on him, and he has takes a few seconds to adjust his sense of smell lest he vomit all over the clean white tiles. Worst of all, all the café's seats and tables have been occupied by haggard university students on their laptops overlapping typical coffee shop chatter with sounds of frantic typing. Those who weren't able to take seats are either leaning against the wall or standing awkwardly between tables, coffee in one hand and phone in the other. On high alert of a vacated chair, their eyes periodically scan the room.
Discouraged, Yamaguchi turns on his heel just before catching sight of the perfect table in the corner of his eye.
The spot is in the far corner of the room, away from the cacophony at the middle of the café where uncomfortable students have come to accumulate and of reasonable distance from the noise at the counter. It is not right below the single air conditioning unit nor distant from its area of effect, but just enough out of its way to receive enough cold air. Yamaguchi spies a set of two outlets underneath the table, with only one socket in use. Of the two seats placed across from each other, one is the only empty seat left in the café.
The other chair is positioned with its back turned away from the entrance, so all Yamaguchi can see of its occupant are white headphones atop short blond hair and pale skin creeping out from a navy blue sweater. Like others in the café, the stranger faces a laptop with a document and a browser splitting the screen. The way their long fingers glide deftly across the keyboard, however, is unmatched. While the rest of the customers bleed their own personal brands of stress and discomfort, the stranger exhibits a calm and quiet demeanor. Yamaguchi continues to stare at their back until a small collision knocks him back to reality.
"Ah, sorry!" He says quickly, as he comes out of his trance. The woman he blocked waves him away in a gesture of forgiveness, leaving Yamaguchi to get his bearings straight.
He can easily count ten, fifteen people standing up, but no one has opted to sit across his blond stranger. It's not as if the seat is hidden, as it’s illuminated by the hanging light near its table. He assumes it's also not because the others are too shy to sit with people they don't know; he can spot students sharing booths but sitting a certain distance from each other, as if not wanting to interact. He finds himself starting at the stranger again. They don't look particularly threatening, just calm.
With that, Yamaguchi walks the ten paces he needs to reach the table. He finds that there are more than a few eyes following him as he stops in front of the chair and waves his hand in greeting:
"Hi!"
The boy doesn't reply. His back is hunched over and he seems completely engrossed in his work. Dumbly, Yamaguchi remembers his headphones. He tries again, but with more vigor and larger hand gestures:
"Hello!"
With an audible sigh, the stranger slowly pulls his headphones from his head and moves to look at Yamaguchi. For the first time, he gets a good look at the boy's face.
And, well, said boy is actually very cute.
Yamaguchi feels an unwelcome warmth rush to his face. For two seconds, he forgets where he is and what he came there to do. His eyes take in the boy’s long, graceful fingers and short blond hair.
What makes Yamaguchi freeze in his tracks is not the pair of warm, golden brown eyes shielded by black glasses atop a small, thin nose. It isn't the couple of thin eyebrows scrunched together, the little v formed on his forehead, nor the tips of his ears flushed an adorable rosy shade.
It is the fact that the very cute boy also looks very, very angry.
"What," he says through his teeth, completely livid. More than half the café is looking at the pair now. The stranger isn't yelling at all, but the tension caused by Yamaguchi's intrusion is thicker than wood.
So this is why no one's sitting here, Yamaguchi thinks. He says a little prayer for himself. Hinata, tell my mother I love her.
"Can I sit here?" He says, trying to sound cheerful and sweet and not at all terrified.
"Why."
"U-um, I need to sit somewhere, and there's nowhere else to-"
"Fine."
“Thanks!” More than anything, the sudden agreement surprises Yamaguchi, but he supposes it’s just because the other boy wants to utter as few words as possible. And that’s fine, he thinks. You may be cute, but you’re also very scary and I need to write about 15,000 more words before Friday.
He sends Hinata a quick text before settling in the mahogany chair:
7:20 PM
to: HINATA
My laptop died ヽ (´Д`;) ﾉ i’m at starbucks, charging and writing my essay. i might be home late, please text if power is back.
He pulls out his laptop from its sleeve and the charger from his bag’s pocket. Careful not to disturb the blond even further, he noiselessly sets the laptop on the table and plugs in the adaptor in the unused socket. He lets out a sigh of relief when a small dot on the charger glows orange, and turns on his laptop. As he waits for the desktop to appear on the screen, his phone blurts out the first few notes of the Pokémon Red battle music.
7:21 PM
from: HINATA
OK yama do your best o( ｀ ^´*)
Before he knows it, it’s his turn to order.
He has never actually been to Starbucks before, much less ordered anything. Yamaguchi has always found coffee to be borderline appalling, with taste buds having never been accustomed to the bitter tang while growing up. In his college years, when he found that staying up until the latest hours of the night were more a necessity than a childhood wish, he experimented with different ratios of sugar (3 packets) and cream (5 packets) to reach a flavor he could stomach, and even then vowed only to turn to it as a last resort.
Yet, here he found himself trying to order off an unfamiliar menu filled with the very drinks he hated in order to ease the guilt in his chest at intending to use all of their free amenities without giving something in return.
He checks the assortment of pastries and sandwiches beside the counter and picks out his dinner. “Could I have a glazed donut, please?” He realizes too late that the last bottled water was ordered by the person before him, and he quickly orders the first thing he sees on the overhead menu.
“And, um, a… Caffè Americano?” He winces as soon as he utters his coffee order, but he hands over the payment anyway. The blonde barista is still kind and cheerful after serving dozens upon dozens of university students, and Yamaguchi takes it upon himself to feel especially sorry for her.
“Is electricity out in all the dormitories?” She asks him, laughing. “I could’ve sworn this place was quiet thirty minutes ago!"
Yamaguchi gives her a sympathetic smile back as he receives his change and receipt. “I’m not sure, but there’s definitely a blackout in ours,” he replies. He peeks at the nametag on her chest. “Thanks, Tanaka-san!”
He walks back to his table, where the blond boy is in the exact position he was in when Yamaguchi first saw him. He quietly sits back down and examines the last paragraph he wrote.
Studies have analyzed the role of bryophytes, which colonized the terrestrial habitat during the Middle to Late Ordovician period, in the rise of levels of atmospheric oxygen and the establishment of a stable oxygen-rich atmosphere triggered during the mid-Paleozoic era (Kenrick et al., 1997). A study by Lenton et al. (2016) points to a major oxygenation event brought on by the rise of the earliest land plants due to the elevation of organic carbon burial, indicated by the positive shifts in isotopic composition of carbonate rocks. The latter is supported by the high carbon to phosphorus ratio of bryophytes which was further amplified by plant-driven increase in P weathering flux relative to the weathering flux of alkalinity. Further analysis of isotopic composition of carbonate rocks implied stability of atmospheric oxygen wherein oxidative weathering increased and new fire-mediated negative feedbacks on oxygen were initiated. These finding indicate, if not emphasize, the significance and prominence of bryophytes in subsequent evolution of oxygen-dependent organisms.
“It’s missing something,” he says out loud, his left fingers drumming against the table and right leg shaking as he thinks. He's at seven pages now, and he's quite proud of the sentences he managed to write, but he still had to cram 18 more pages. He doesn’t notice the slight rocking of the table as he performs his restless mannerisms, nor does he notice the sudden frantic typing of the stranger in front of him.
He does, however, hear the loud tch the blond sends his way.
“Could you please,” he says, looking at Yamaguchi like he's gum stuck to the sole of his favorite shoe, “stop that.”
“Sorry!” He says, for what he thinks is the eleventh time that day.
The stranger keeps his eyes on him for two moments more, then goes back to his work. Yamaguchi’s eyes are drawn to the cable of the blond’s earphones, which aren’t plugged into anything at all.
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"Yamaguchi."
"Yamaguchi."
The blond pokes the sleeping boy across from him exactly eight times before the latter wakes up with a jolt and a flurry of unintelligible sounds.
"Wha-? What happened?" A fork clatters to the floor in his temporary chaos. He shakes his head as his eyes adjust to his surroundings.
The Starbucks is almost devoid of customers now, save for themselves and a couple huddled together in a corner, sharing what looks like a pink milkshake with whipped cream on top. They certainly paint a sweeter picture than Yamaguchi, who is a tired mess, and the blond, who looks as uninterested as ever. The barista, Tanaka-san, yawns by the cashier, smiling at Yamaguchi when their eyes meet. One barista clears the table a few meters away from the couple, and another scrunches his forehead in concentration as he plays his Nintendo 3DS behind the counter. It's dark outside, but a few streetlights illuminate the road and the students walking along it.
"You fell asleep."
"Oh."
"And you drooled all over your keyboard."
Yamaguchi curses and quickly wipes between the keys with a used tissue as the stranger watches him. He chances a quick look at his laptop screen and groans. He finds out exactly which part of his keyboard he slept on, as the document shows a smash of letters from the right.
He feels his face with his hands. Sure enough, there are indents where the keys pressed against his head as he slept.
Opposite him, the blond snorts behind his hand. Yamaguchi sends him a weak glare. If the small laugh is any indication, he considers himself forgiven for earlier's mishap. The stranger looks much more human now, with his stiff shoulders and robotic glare replaced by tired, uninterested features. He doesn’t look like he wants to gouge Yamaguchi’s eyes out with the tips of his glasses; rather, he looks like he doesn’t care about whatever happens to Yamaguchi at all.
"How long was I asleep?"
"About two hours. It's midnight. They'll be closing soon, so I woke you." In his daze, he almost misses a crucial detail.
"Wait, you woke me up?"
The stranger raises an eyebrow. "Who else?"
"How do you know my name?"
At this, the blond blushes again, this time not with quiet anger but with what Yamaguchi decides is embarrassment. "They called your name when they gave you your drink. And it’s on your cup."
"Oh, right."
"Which you barely touched." He’s right. The coffee Yamaguchi ordered was the worst he’d ever tasted, and was enough to make him repulsed at the thought of drinking anything in the next four hours. The cup remained beside an empty plate, with his name scrawled lazily on its side.
"Ah, well - I'm not exactly... I don't like coffee. I just came here because electricity was out at my dorm and I needed somewhere to charge my laptop," he says, sheepish.
Eyebrow raise again. "If not coffee, what?"
"Um, juice?"
"They sell juice at Starbucks."
"Wha- They do?"
"Yes."
He nods his head thoughtfully as his hands find the phone in his pocket.
9:43 PM
from: HINATA
are u still at starbucks? im back at the dorm. kageyama and noya-san and i played 3v3 against suga-san and daichi-san and ennoshita-san, we won yaaaaay (´∀`) no power yet, but suga-san gave us some candles and stuff. power out in 4 dorms. kageyama went back 2 his house.
10:31 PM
from: HINATA
yama-chaaaaan where are youuuu id go to starbucks but i dont wanna move and its cold outside
10:52 PM
from: HINATA
is it OK to leave a candle on while i sleep?
10:53 PM
from: HINATA
im leaving 1 on its dark
11:02 PM
from: HINATA
night yamachan~ leaving the room unlocked, dont overwork urself!! (:˒[￣]
Yamaguchi groans. If he doesn’t get back soon, the whole dormitory will burn down. If it hasn’t already, he thinks, as he hastily dumps his laptop and charger back into the bag. His eyes wander to the stranger, who quietly sips his drink as he peruses the contents of his phone. His laptop is nowhere to be seen, and Yamaguchi considers asking him why he’s still here when it’s near-closing time before changing his mind.
He should probably thank him for waking him up, though. His eyes scan the coffee cup the blond is holding before settling on a name, written as haphazardly as Yamaguchi’s own. He stands up and slings his bag over his shoulder before turning his head to the blond.
“I should go. Ah, thanks for waking me up, Tsukki!”
Unfortunately, the split-second before Yamaguchi says his name, Tsukki’s grasp on his cup shifts to reveal the remaining –shima, and Yamaguchi wills a bullet train, or a rogue helicopter, or even a newborn baby, really, to end his life then and there as Tsukishima’s features slowly morph into a familiar glare.
Neither the machines nor the infant arrive quick enough.