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“Ah! Tsukki, I need to stop at the corner shop on the way home!” Lifting his face from the towel he’d been using to wipe the sweat away, Tsukishima rises an eyebrow in the approximate direction of his best friend, not specifically able to see him thanks to his glasses up on his forehead.
“Why?”
“Please?”
“Okay, but why?” He slips his glasses back down to the bridge of his nose, narrowing his eyes as Yamaguchi grins, twinkling with mischief.
“Thanks Tsukki!”
“... Why?” Yamaguchi blinks at him innocently, but the motive behind it is anything but.
“Just because I need to buy a few things~.” Tsukishima narrows his eyes more, practically squinting, but before he can saw anything else, Ukai calls for everyone to gather round to talk strategy.
Warily, Tsukishima keeps his gaze on Yamaguchi for most of it, wondering why he’s sitting so close to Hinata and Kageyama, leaning over like he’s whispering to Hinata at random intervals. The gremlin nods back energetically, and that’s when Tsukishima knows something is afoot.
“Alright, go get changed, get home quickly, don’t forget to eat a good meal!”
“And watch out for ice!” With the permission of Ukai and Takeda, the teenagers make a break from the gymnasium, pausing at the door to huddle together like penguins before Daichi gives the signal and they race to the clubrooms.
Whoever forgot that winter meant having to bolt across the courtyard needed to be severely punished. Who even builds a school without a changing room attached to the gymnasium? Tsukishima hoped justice was served in the form of hypothermia.
Once they’re in the warmth of the clubroom, the team laughing and talking boisterously as usual, Tsukishima tries to shimmy closer to Yamaguchi to hear what he’s saying to Hinata, but Tanaka’s loud voice drowns it out, and Suga engages Kageyama in conversation, blocking the way through. All Tsukishima understands is that some sort of agreement was reached.
He hopes it’s not a blood pact.
“Tsukki! Are you ready to go?” He hesitates, jaw tight and lips pulled into a downwards frown as he stares at Yamaguchi, trying to figure out what the devil in disguise is up to. Eventually, he answers, stretching it out with an unsure tone.
“Yes…?” Yamaguchi grins, dimples making two specific freckles disappear, and Tsukishima sighs as he accepts his fate. Whatever Yamaguchi has in store, he’ll go through with it.
“Hinata, Kageyama! We’re leaving!”
“Okay, coming!”
What.
What.
No.
“I take it back, I’m going home.” Before he can make it out the door, Yamaguchi latches onto his arm and pulls him back, the devilish glint never fading.
“Nope! Sorry Tsukki, you already agreed!”
“Why are they coming with us?”
“Team bonding. Besides, if you do this one thing with us, you’ll have met your Social Interaction Quota™ for the month.” Tsukishima hesitates. He battles with himself internally, scowl deepening and grinding his teeth together. He glances down at Yamaguchi.
Puppy eyes. Large, watery puppy-dog eyes, complete with a pout and wobbling bottom lip. Tsukishima sighs and closes his eyes tightly with regret, pinching just below the bridge of his glasses.
“Fine.”
“Thank y-!”
“But. This is the one social interaction for an entire month. Don’t expect anything else until January 14th.”
“... I suppose I can live with that.” Tsukishima huffs a laugh, shrugging Yamaguchi off his arm and tugging his Karasuno issued bag up onto his shoulder. He used to have the red counterpart to Yamaguchi’s green bag, but when he found out Yamaguchi was being teased for it, switched over to prevent it developing into something serious.
Teasing was always how it started.
The boys who had once pushed Yamaguchi over in a playground and thrown their bags at his face had started off ‘just teasing’.
Tsukishima didn’t want a repeat.
“Tsukki, come on!” Yamaguchi was already out the clubroom, Hinata bounding down the stairs to the courtyard, and Kageyama shouting over the balcony for him to slow down, insulting him as he slipped on ice and fell on his butt.
“Dumbass, Hinata! Takeda-Sensei said to be careful!”
“Oh shush, Bakageyama! It’s not like there’s any cars around here.” Yamaguchi chuckles as he catches up, Tsukishima trawling after him like it’s physically painful to accompany them.
“Kageyama’s right, Shouyou. What if you’d hit your head?”
“It wouldn’t do much. He’s already stupid.”
“What was that, Stingyshima?!”
“Ho, boy.” Yamaguchi sighs, though he shakes his head in mirth. As Tsukishima starts making biting remarks in Hinata’s direction, Hinata retaliating with stuttered insults and threats of fighting, Yamaguchi falls into step with Kageyama, who stares baffled after them.
“Do we- Do we tell them they’re supposed to wait for us?”
“No, just let them go~. As long as they stop at Sakanoshita, they’re fine.”
“... Okay.” Yamaguchi talks pleasantly to Kageyama, and the longer he attempts to make conversation flow, the more Kageyama eases into it. It’s easy to talk to Yamaguchi, when he isn’t being interrupted every 3 seconds by Hinata, or riled up by Tsukishima.
Whilst Hinata is undoubtable his rival turned friend, first friend, and best friend, Kageyama feels like he and Yamaguchi could have been friends if they’d met at a previous time, without their best friends. Of course, the past can’t be changed, but there’s always the future and the present.
A laugh is drawn from deep within him as Yamaguchi talks about the time Tsukishima’s older brother - Akiteru - pushed Tsukishima down a hill, forgetting that the brakes on the bike he was riding were as good as rust, and Tsukishima ended up emerging from a swampy pond covered in gross green things and soaked to the bone, screaming explicits as Akiteru tried to hold him back from running to their parents and telling them Akiteru had pushed him into a pond.
“How- How old was he?”
“Akiteru was 17. Tsukki was 12.” Kageyama tries to hold back another laugh, but it bursts through anyways as he imagines the scene, and Yamaguchi beams a bright smile. He looks back to Hinata and Tsukishima and finds golden eyes staring back at him like Tsukishima knows, and innocently waves his hand.
Tsukishima, of course, being on high alert for anything suspicious anyways, adds it to his internal list of Why-Yamaguchi-Is-The-Devil-Incarnate and slowly turns back to looking where he’s going. Just in time to collide with a lamppost.
Hinata bursts out laughing, and Yamaguchi snickers into his sleeve, Kageyama makes a ‘pffft’ sound and looking away. Tsukishima clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth, laying there until a gloved hand appears in his vision.
“Come on, Tsukki. We have shopping to do!” Groaning, he wishes he could just stay on the floor, but they’re outside Sakanoshita, and if Ukai didn’t come outside to yell at him, his mother sure would. Sakanoshita-san is terrifying. It’s easy to see where Ukai gets his intimidating side from.
Taking Yamaguchi’s hand and getting pulled to his feet, Tsukishima questions whether his existence is truly worth having to suffer this moment. Unfortunately for his painful soul, he winds up deciding to live, because he can one day try to get these incidents removed by intensive therapy.
“Shouyou, you get flour and sugar, Kageyama, get the eggs, Tsukki, chocolate chips. I’ll get the margarine.” Instantly, Tsukishima clues in.
“Cookies. You’re planning to make cookies.” Yamaguchi grins at him, hands clasped together and nods.
“Yup! Chocolate chip cookies! It’s a test run for Daichi and Asahi’s birthdays!” Tsukishima stares at him deadpan. He turns on his heel. And goes towards the section where the store keeps chocolate chips. He hears Yamaguchi chime a “Thanks, Tsukki!” after him, but doesn’t answer.
Baking. With Yamaguchi’s track record, Kageyama and Hinata? It’s going to be a disaster, and he knows he could potentially escape now, but he doesn’t.
Mainly because if something disastrous does happen, he’d like to save Yamaguchi at least. What was it with Yamaguchi putting himself in danger trying to bake? This would be the forty-third time this year.
Only 52 weeks in a year, and Yamaguchi had decided to bake 43 times, always on a Wednesday, always ending in mess, mayhem, and murder. Well, maybe not the last one, but it was a close call when he tried baking without supervision. He wouldn’t live long at this rate.
“Do you want milk chocolate or dark chocolate?”
“Dark chocolate, please!”
“Yamaguchiiiii, what sugar should I get?”
“Either caster, or wasanbon!”
“Uh- Uh, why are the eggs stamped with different things?”
“Those are grades. Get the free range ones, with a red stamp.”
“If they’re flat, do we use plain flour?”
“... Tsukki, can you google that?”
“Plain flour, but add Baking Powder and Bicarbonate of Soda to the list.”
“Did you get that, Shouyou?”
“Yeah! Thanks, Yamaguchi! And Stingyshima, I guess.” Tsukishima scoffs as he grabs three packets of the chocolate chips, then meets the others at the small study table, whilst Yamaguchi adds it up in his head and checks he has enough money.
Once the items are paid for, they walk straight to Yamaguchi’s, removing shoes, bags, and coats in the genkan. Shuffling into the kitchen, Yamaguchi collects all the items they’re going to need.
“Okay! Let’s get baking!”
Tsukishima doesn’t want to be part of this, from the very second Kageyama opens the bag of flour and a huge cloud of white puffs out into his face, making him drop the bag and there’s an explosion of grain.
“... I’ll be watching TV, don’t bother me unless someone dies.” He moves into the living room, laying across Yamaguchi’s very comfortable sofa and switching the television onto the nature channel. No matter how wild the programme gets, it can’t be anywhere near as animalistic as what’s going on in the kitchen.
Screaming, shrieking, begging to any god available, sobbing, clattering, and the general sound of regret all flood out from the kitchen as Tsukishima watches his programmes peacefully, pretending like nothing is even happening in the background. He has subtitles, and David Attenborough's voice is so iconic that he doesn’t need to hear it to hear it.
“TSUKKIIIIIIIII!!!!” The bawled cry of his name gets his immediate attention, and he practically leaps over the sofa to get to the kitchen, skidding in through the doorway.
“What happened?” Yamaguchi holds out his hands, both with a burn mark lined directly across the palm. Hinata is scrambling in the cupboards for some burn cream, whilst Kageyama holds the tray of surprisingly well-baked cookies, looking completely lost in the mayhem.
“Put your hands under cold water. Hinata, stop being a cupboard gremlin, burn cream is in the drawers in the living room, next to the fireplace. Kageyama, put those cookies on the cooling rack, then go and get bandages from the bathroom.”
“Yes sir!” Hinata mock salutes with a tingling of fear down his spine as he darts into the living room to find the burn cream. Kageyama carefully puts the tray down on the cooling rack and jogs off up the stairs.
“Ts- Tsukkiiiii…” The utterly pathetic whine of his name makes Tsukishima sigh and he turns back to Yamaguchi, whimpering and flinching as he holds his hands under the tap, cold water flowing.
“How did you do it?”
“I- I went to- I grabbed the- the underside of the tray an’ - and the oven was-”
“Okay, I think I understand now.” Tsukishima knocks his knuckles against Yamaguchi’s forehead gently to chastise him, before he uses his thumbs to brush away the welling tears. Yamaguchi hiccups.
“It hurts, Tsukki.”
“Of course it will, moron, you put your hands in an oven. At what part did you think that was a good idea?”
“But the cookies looked so good, I had to get them out before they burnt!”
“30 seconds whilst you put oven gloves on wouldn’t have done too much damage.”
“I got the burn cream!!!” Hinata skids back into the kitchen, almost colliding with the fridge, and holds onto the tube as Yamaguchi pulls his hands out from under the sink. He sobs as Tsukishima uses a dishcloth to dry them, making the burns sting, but it’s for the better in the long term.
Once the hands are dry, Hinata applies a healthy dollop to Yamaguchi’s palms that Tsukishima carefully rubs in, circling the application so it’s absorbed through the damaged skin.
“You won’t be playing for a while…”
“Wha-What?! No! I have to! Tsukki, I have to!” Narrowing his eyes, Tsukishima presses his finger against the burn gently and Yamaguchi yelps as he tugs them away. He seems to realise how serious it is and nods as he sniffles.
“O- Okay… Just for a while…” Kageyama returns with the bandages, and Tsukishima wraps the palms before turning to the cookie tray. The other two are fussing over Yamaguchi, so he swipes on and takes a bite.
He quickly spits it out, gagging.
“Who used fucking salt?!”