Work Text:
Tsukishima had never put a lot of thoughts into breasts. He didn’t dislike them or anything, he just didn’t have any thoughts in particular about them. They were there, women and omegas had them in varying sizes, they filled out shirts, and at some point in middle school a lot of the guys on the volleyball team became quietly obsessed. He hadn’t been among that number, rolling his eyes and scoffing when talks about who had seemingly developed overnight or measurements came up before excusing himself to wait for Yamaguchi to finish up in the omega locker room.
At least he hadn’t had any thoughts about them, right up until he had a lot of thoughts about tits. Specifically (and exclusively) Yamaguchi’s.
It started in their last year of junior high, overhearing something he knew right away he wasn’t meant to be privy to in the locker room before morning practice one day. They must have thought he wasn’t there yet, as he was normally one of the last to come in and liked to push the line between being on time and being late, but his brother was visiting for the week so he’d left the house early to avoid any potential run ins.
The other boys came in talking, loud and laughing like they always did, and Tsukishima was tucked out of sight, behind one of the rows of lockers, lacing up his shoes. He frowned, seriously considering putting his headphones back on to tune out the noise, when Yamaguchi’s name caught his attention.
“Yamaguchi? What about him?”
“He’s cute.” A self conscious pause then a cough. Tsukishima sat up straighter, frown pulling at the corner of his lips. “For a boy omega, you know?”
“Sure, but he’s completely flat.” A third voice said, snickering. “Rika, on the basketball team though, she’s got-”
“He’s not flat.” The second voice again, quietly offended. “They just aren’t big, like you’re into, and he’s always wearing those loose shirts, but Yamaguchi has tits. Last time we went running, and his shirt got all sweaty and was sticking to his chest-”
Someone laughed and there was a sound like skin slapping against skin then the shuffling of feet against the floor. “You like Yamaguchi!”
“I don’t-”
“Too bad for you. Tsukishima would rip all four of your pubes out if he caught you looking.”
Tsukishima decided, at that point, he was done listening and very noisily finished up, slamming his locker shut (and smiling to himself at the sudden hush that fell over the room) before ambling towards the door. He cut his eyes to the side, noting which of his three teammates he’d overheard, zeroing in on the one who was deathly pale and pointedly avoiding looking towards him, before walking out.
He was too bewildered to mess with them beyond a few dark looks during practice (which was enough to make them miss blocks and collide into each other because of spending more time cringing away from him than focusing on what was happening). He didn’t know what was more confusing to him, that Yamaguchi would be the subject of those lewd conversations he did his best to avoid or that someone else was paying so much attention they’d noticed something Tsukishima had not. Assuming it was true and not just talk for the sake of talk but, no, that didn’t make any sense.
Tsukishima had never really thought of Yamaguchi in terms of ‘Omega’ or ‘Omega body’. He didn’t think he’d ever looked at him with the curious, lingering eye he sometimes found himself looking at others with before he caught himself and looked away. He had noticed any changes in him, aside from getting taller and that was more of a ‘oh, his measurement went up again this year’ than a conscious awareness, as they’d gotten older but maybe that was what happened when you saw someone almost every day.
But now he was looking. It was like the things he’d heard decided to worm into his brain, like a parasite, and changed the way he saw his friend without his permission, made him look harder.
It was weird. Creepy, maybe, to stare intently at Yamaguchi while they ran and stretched, when they hung out after school in their bedrooms to study, to have his eyes rake up and down the other’s body, to try to call images of Yamaguchi to mind when he was alone and turn it over and over. He didn’t know why he cared, why he was suddenly preoccupied with big brown eyes, freckles sprinkled over a familiar nose, pale lips, the long curve of Yamaguchi’s neck. (Cute, he wondered more often than he wanted to admit, was Yamaguchi cute?) The subtle curve to hips he didn’t think had been there before (whenever before was) the way his shorts fit over his-
Creepy.
Yamaguchi did have breasts.
That was a realization easily come to, once he was looking for it. He did wear shirts a size or two too big most of the time, even his volleyball uniform fit looser than everyone else wore theirs. Tsukishima was suddenly aware of how careful his friend was when they worked out together to not let his shirts pull tight when he bent and twisted, to never lean forward enough to let his collar pull too far away, to never lean his chest against Tsukishima’s back when he helped him stretch.
He folded his arms over his chest a lot, turned his body away when they sweat through their clothes and his shirt clung to his skin or hung differently. Invites to the beach and pool were politely, but vehemently, denied. He was hiding himeself, or trying to, but they were there.
They were small, not enough for Yamaguchi to bother with a bra and so barely anything to be interested in by the standards of the boys Tsukishima heard talking about that sort of thing. Yet he was maybe. Possibly. A little preoccupied with Yamaguchi and his chest. They didn’t sit the same way they did on girls, being a little further apart (as far as Tsukishima could tell) a little less ‘round’ and more ‘flattened’.
He wondered stupid things like ‘did Yamaguchi have freckles there too?’ and ‘are they soft?’ and ‘how big are they really?’
Junior high ended, high school began, volleyball club started and with that came a new element in their lives that was maybe out to drive Tsukishima insane. Omega uniforms, sleeveless, cut closer than the male ones, with shorts just a little shorter, boasting an omega symbol in vivid orange at the bottom corner of the number. It was, supposedly, so advisors and coaches could be more aware of them and keep them protected from bullying or teasing, since letting male omegas on male teams was a ‘new’ thing, and to make sure other teams behaved ‘properly’. Tsukishima had his doubts about how calling attention to a person’s secondary sex was going to help anything but, at the same time, he didn’t *hate* the uniforms.
He probably liked them entirely too much considering how much Yamaguchi seemed to despise them. It was fitted, tighter across the chest than anything Tsukishima had ever seen him wear before, and no amount of squirming or hiding himself away did much to actually…hide anymore. The uniform caused a change in the lines of Yamaguchi’s body, or just let Tsukishima see what was there more easily, gave him a more clear idea of shape and size and thanks to the wonder of walking into a cool building from a warmer outside an idea of what the outline of Yamaguchi’s nipples looked like.
His friend blushed darker than Tsukishima had ever seen and shrugged his jacket back on in record time, all within a few moments of walking inside.
(This would only happen once. Afterwards Suga would take Yamaguchi aside, offer some gentle suggestions, and forever after the outline of a sports bra could be seen through Yamaguchi’s jersey.)
The guilty flush of heat he’d felt, fanning over his skin and spiraling down to settle low in his gut, had been…a revelation. A sudden burst of ‘Oh! I want to touch them! Him!’ had nearly sent him tripping over his own feet. And even if that hadn’t happened Tanaka slapping him on the back of the head and hissing at him to stop ogling Yamaguchi would have done it. He couldn’t even find it in himself, past his shock and mortification at being caught, to ask where Tanaka had learned a word like ogle.
Keeping his head in the game, and eyes away from the bench, took everything Tsukishima had. There was no helping his imagination, now supplied with more, better, details and eager to conjure vivid ideas about what Yamaguchi would look like without clothes. He could now saw Yamaguchi’s boobs were small enough to be completely covered by his hands, easily, that they were little soft curves he could picture running his fingers under, around, up to nipples he now knew were wider than his own, could harden into prominent peaks, and he wanted to see that too.
They looked soft, like they would fit to his hands, conforming and giving way when he touched or squeezed.
There was a thin line between ‘hormonal’ and ‘terrible and should feel bad for wanting to jerk off to thoughts of your best friend’ and Tsukishima was swiftly crossing over into the latter. And once he was there, and he was there, he was entirely unsure of how to fix it.
Asking to touch was probably out of the question.
…probably.
For all that he thought decidedly un-best friend like thoughts about Yamaguchi, Tsukishima didn’t imagine he’d actually get to see or touch his friend beyond the usual friendly exchanges. Not that he wanted to...except he wanted to and so the little contact he had was a special kind of torture. He was acutely aware of things that he hadn’t been before, catalogued every single tiny brush in his mind and held onto it tightly.
All the times Yamaguchi leaned over his shoulder or bumped against him, shoulder to shoulder or knee to knee when they studied. Yamaguchi slapping his back or arm when he said something the omega thought was funny or rude or both, usually both, fingers touching when they passed things back and forth, bumped fists when they parted ways of the walk home and the way Yamaguchi leaned into him, against him, when he snickered behind his hand. It was all safe, normal, a hundred little things that he’d never thought about before. Except nothing was all that safe anymore, not when just watching Yamaguchi do just about anything made his heart race and his stomach churn.
Tsukishima had not been at all prepared for how annoying being attracted to his best friend turned out to be. They spent so much time together, in such close proximity, that it was almost impossible to get any relief from what he was feeling. Especially as the year wore on and Yamaguchi started changing right before his eyes, things he was aware of where before they would have slipped his notice. The harder he worked in volleyball, trying to carve out a place for himself on their ridiculous team, the more Yamaguchi became a different person, physically as his arms gained muscle and his thighs thickened, but also in the way he carried himself, straighter, lighter, and with that a distracting sway to his step that Tsukishima had never seen before.
The way he dressed changed too, seemingly overnight. One day he met Tsukishima outside of his house in a uniform shirt and sweater that fit closer to his body, skimming and hugging in places. Yamaguchi’s face was tinged pink all day but not once did he move to cover himself or shrink away behind Tsukishima when people spoke to him and soon that became the norm, all of his uniforms fitting properly. Yamaguchi stopped glaring hatefully at his volleyball uniform between one game and the next, able to even smile when Suga drug all the omegas together to take a picture (they were the only omega heavy team in their prefecture and Suga seemed delighted by that fact, but Tsukishima supposed if he was subjected to snide comments about being more fit for cheerleading that volleyball he’d want to show off some too.)
Wedged between a laughing Ennoshita and a sour Kageyama, with a beaming Suga and bewildered, slightly panicked looking, Asahi behind them, Yamaguchi grinned so hard he practically glowed. Tsukishima watched, heart doing something strange in his chest, and saw for the first time that there was more to what was happening than he’d known.
They went to the movies with Hinata, Kageyama, and Yachi and there was Yamaguchi, in a soft green v-neck with short sleeves, hair pushed away from his face and held back with clips, and jeans that weren't rolled up at the bottom of threatening to slide down because of how big they were. Tsukishima trailed behind him as he chattered with Hinata and Yachi and tried to have a serious talk with himself about not staring at Yamaguchi's ass.
It was futile. He stared. He stared so hard that even Kageyama noticed, elbowing him sharply in the ribs and laying a disapproving look worthy of Daichi on him. The fact Kageyama had managed to arrange his normally stuck-on-scary features into something...well, still scary but in a different way was nothing short of shocking and, worse, he absolutely deserved that, and worse, but that didn’t stop him from being too entranced to look away.
He just had to accept that he was so obvious even an idiot could see it and hope that Yamaguchi wouldn’t.
Things continued like that, Yamaguchi changing little by little while Tsukishima watched, acutely aware that he was standing still and that a gap he didn’t know how to cross was opening up between them. The team was pushing forward, becoming stronger in the wake of defeat, and Yamaguchi was running alongside them, caring so much and trying so hard. Tsukishima didn’t know what to make of suddenly not having Yamaguchi at his back but, rather, right in front of him, in his face.
Their second training camp came and with it another change in Yamaguchi. A loud angry change, complete with eyes burning with emotion and hands clenched in his shirt while Yamaguchi yelled at him. A year ago Yamaguchi wouldn’t have done something like that; he didn’t let Tsukishima walk all over him, no, but he also didn’t get loud or angry. But there he was, demanding that Tsukishima...that he move, with the rest of them.
It was impossible to deny Yamaguchi in that moment, to not feel the pull of something. Not just what was there on the surface, but something primal and sharp, a challenge that appealed to his hindbrain and made his gums and teeth itch to rise to it. To be worthy, to stop hiding and start trying to be more.
It was kind of humbling, actually.
Tsukishima wasn’t sure if he liked it or not, but he was pretty sure he didn’t hate it. He might have been a little into it. Something to think about later, at a point where he wasn’t exhausted down to his bones and wanted nothing more than to collapse somewhere. And yet he felt...good. Better than good. Lighter even though his limbs felt like they were made from lead and his brain was struggling to think further ahead that ‘sleep. Sleep. Sleep.’
He was going to become as sappy and stupid as the rest of the team.
Hauling himself inside and down to the bathroom to clean up took every ounce of his willpower. It was late and he half expected the baths to already be emptied but a quick scrub down would be enough for the night and, hopefully, keep him from offended anyone else’s nose. Unlike certain other members of the team, who were comfortable reeking like feet and armpits, he valued personal hygiene highly.
His desire to not go to bed stewing in his own sweat wasn’t something he ever expected to lead to what was alternately the best and worst moment of his life. He was going to blame being well and truly out of it on why he didn’t knock or call out before sliding over the door and walking inside, and the late hour for why it never even occurred to him that someone might already be in there.
Yamaguchi’s shriek showed him the error of his ways.
Yamaguchi was standing there, by the cubby holes they were to use to store their clothes, dressed from the waist down, towel raised up to dry his hair. His eyes were big and startled, his mouth open even after the surprised shout cut off, and already a blush was rushing up his face. His upper half was bare and Tsukishima was looking, breath catching in his throat and eyes dropping down, before he even realized he was doing it.
He might have done it even if he was completely conscious of doing so.
Yamaguchi really did have freckles everywhere. Little sprinklings of brown against his skin, random groupings splashing against his collar bone, curling down and spreading out, lighter and fainter, over the rest of his chest. A spray down his side, over his rib cage, a starburst over his sternum, reaching out to the curve of his chest, little individuals ones, dropped here and there around dusky brown nipples. They traveled over the small swells, curling along the underside before running down over his stomach.
Yamaguchi’s breasts were as small as he’d expected, little upturned peaks and wide nipples that were stiffening and rising under Tsukishima’s gaze, with the barest of curves and weight to them. If he were to touch them, place his palms on them and spread out his fingers, he could hide them easily. They were...nice.
Tsukishima felt hot all over.
He was staring.
Yamaguchi was watching him stare, mouth slowly closing as he blinked rapidly. He didn’t make any move to cover himself. “Tsukki?”
He stepped back, acutely aware that he had the door open for anyone to walk past and see and that he was *staring* opening, like a pervert who didn’t even have the brain cells to hide that they were a pervert (He blamed the company he was keeping. Too much time with the team was smothering his brain in stupid.) and if anyone saw this he’d never hear the end of it.
As if whatever was going through Yamaguchi’s mind wasn’t bad enough.
“S-sorry. I thought the baths would be empty.” Another step and he was almost to freedom and maybe just leaving to go run into traffic and put himself out of his misery.
“Omegas went last tonight, remember?” Now that he mentioned it Tsukishima did remember something about alternating day to day, and being a first year Yamaguchi and Kageyama would be the absolute last to go, and everyone had been practicing late. He’d heard them, in the other gyms, later than he’d expected.
He nodded, took another step, reached for the door to slam it shut and
“Did you, ah, want to touch?”
Tripped over air and, in a move worthy of Hinata, nearly cracked his face off of the door. “What?!”
“Look you- hold on.” Yamaguchi crossed the distance between them in three long steps, grabbed him by the front of the shirt (again) and yanked him into the room. He peeked out quickly, looked left, looked right, and then shut the door before turning back around to face him. His towel was draped loosely over his shoulders, hiding his chest from sight, and giving Tsukishima nothing to look at except his cherry red but utterly determined face. “I’ve seen you looking before this.”
Oh god.
“I think everyone’s seen you looking.” Yamaguchi amended, lips quirking into a teasing smile usually reserved for the idiot duo. “Even Hinata said something about it.”
Oh god!
“I was waiting for you to say something. Hinata said you seem like one of those alphas who’d get offended about being approached-”
Oh. God.
Yamaguchi was going to Hinata for advice about him? He was going to be sick. And then, hopefully, would slip in his own vomit and crack his head open and die, or at least forget any of this had ever happened. He was willing to give up that image of Yamaguchi’s tits, as nice as they were, to never have to confront that Yamaguchi was talking to Hinata about him.
Never ever.
“But I’m tired of waiting!” This came with a finger poked into his shoulder sharply and brown eyes narrowed resolutely. “So! If you want to touch my c-chest you can!”
...who was this person and what had they done with *his* Yamaguchi?
Tsukishima blinked once. Twice. Nodded slowly then very deliberately stepped to the side and tried to walk about Yamaguchi. Maybe he was already dead and this was hell. A very strange kind of hell, where the one thing he’d been thinking about to the point of obsession was offered to him and he ran off in a panic to live out the rest of his life in shame and regret.
“Tsukki!” Tsukishima jumped as Yamaguchi’s shout echoed off the tiles. His friend’s hand darted out to wrap around his wrist and Tsukishima could only watch, dumbly, as his hand was tugged up and, with a fleshy smack, laid it across Yamaguchi’s chest.
His first absurd thought, and a clear sign that he was losing it, was to those three junior high teammates and whether or not they’d be jealous. Then the more sensible part of his brain kicked in to blithely remind him that his hand was on Yamaguchi. Touching warm, smooth skin, still slightly damp from the bath, fleshy and yielding under the press of his palm. He pressed his lips together and, eyes dropping down to look, swallowed hard. Yamaguchi’s hand on his wrist made him press harder; he could feel the raised nub of Yamaguchi’s nipple rubbing against him and the pebbled skin around it.
Yamaguchi’s breathing hitched; Tsukishima could feel his his chest rise and fall. His fingers flexed, slipped down the slope of Yamaguchi’s breast, rubbed over the stiff, risen nub. Another sound from Yamaguchi, a fluttering sigh of shock, brought his gaze back up to the other’s face. He was a molted red all the way to the tips of his ears, his bottom lip was between his teeth, and his eyes were darting around rapidly.
His fingers moved, thumb pressing against the underside of the soft swell, pushing it up then sweeping back down. He squeezed, fingers molding the shape of Yamaguchi’s tit, kneading the firm yet yelding flesh. Yamaguchi’s lips parted around a quiet ‘oh’ in the same moment their eyes found each other, locked together.
Tsukishima’s stomach flipped and heat pooled inside of him; his cock twitched in interest. Was that Yamaguchi’s heart he was feeling, pounding so hard, and his scent, mild and warm and so familiar he couldn’t remember the last time he’d consciously noticed it, or was it his imagination?
He swayed closer, drawn in as his thumb dragged in a circle at the edge of where he could feel the Yamaguchi’s skin change texture, smooth to little bumps and wrinkles.
He had no idea what he was doing but Yamaguchi wasn’t yelling at him or pushing him away so that seemed like a good sign? In fact he was gripping his wrist so tight it hurt, staring at him with round eyes, rocking up onto his toes then back down. Another squeeze, more gentle, and then he thumbed at Yamaguchi’s nipple, pushed then flicked, circled, all while watching the other’s face, trying to make sense of the way his eyebrows were knitting together and little breathy sounds were leaving his mouth.
Yamaguchi rose up onto his toes again but this time he stayed up, hovered there, close enough to Tsukishima that he could-
Or so Yamaguchi could lean in, close the gap between them and press their mouths together.
‘Oh’ Tsukishima’s brain supplied stupidly before deciding it was better off packing up, shutting down, and vacating the area to perhaps go on vacation to somewhere where things made sense and he didn’t jump from ‘secretly pining’ to ‘groping’ in less than a minute, leaving him gaping and confused and flustered as slick lips moved against his own, slipped here, found the seam of his lips to fit against, between. ‘Oh.’
The door opened. “Yamaguchi, did I leave my- oh.” Kageyama’s oh fell with all the weight of a stone, heavy and foreboding. His expression, as his eyes slide from Tsukishima to Yamaguchi, didn’t shift from neutral. “...nevermind.”
Yamaguchi squeaked.
The door slide back into position.
Tsukishima yanked his hand away. “Kageyama-”
“No.” Came from the other side of the door, followed by footsteps rapidly moving away.
Tsukishima flailed mentally. Yamaguchi shuffled away, both hands pressed against his face, muttering under his breath; Tsukishima could just catch ‘-tell Hinata and Hinata will tell everyone and Daichi-san is going to murder us-’.
Which sounded entirely reasonable and not at all like an exaggeration.
“I’ll go after him.” He said, voice entirely too loud, and was hurrying out of the room and in the direction Kageyama had probably gone in before Yamaguchi could get out more than a sputtered “Tsuk-”
Was it weird, he wondered as he ran down the hall in hopes of saving himself from Daichi’s wrath for fooling around in the baths, that he could still feel the heat and shape of Yamaguchi against his palm?