Chapter Text
It seemed to be a day like any other, a week, a month, a year of comfortable sameness. Yamaguchi liked to think that he could be satisfied if things stayed that way forever, if the relationship between him and his childhood friend never changed, and maybe he would have been. But the world beyond junior high is inevitably dynamic and there’s little to nothing anyone can do to avoid being swept up in its insanity.
It seemed to be a day like any other when the first heartbreak of Yamaguchi’s life would happen. Had he known that what he would see when he rounded that corner would change his year so intensely, he probably wouldn’t have gone looking for Tsukishima in the first place. But he did, and what he saw was his best friend with his hands on the waist of a girl Yamaguchi had never seen before, and lips...
Yamaguchi could hardly believe what he was seeing, even as the image was searing itself into his memory. His head started spinning, his throat tightened up, his stomach dropped when the two looked over and noticed him standing there. All he could choke out was a ‘Sorry, Tsukki’ before he ducked his head and booked it down the hall. His feet were moving faster than his stinging eyes could follow them. How embarrassing. If that same scene had been acted out by anyone else, he could have left his feelings at that. Had it been Hinata or Tanaka or Nishinoya, this encounter wouldn’t have been half as horrifying.
Footsteps coming up behind him were quickly followed by a hand on his shoulder. He inhaled sharply before being forcibly spun around to face Tsukishima. His face was pink, he was breathing heavily. Probably from running after him suddenly, but the invading thought that it was a lingering effect from that girl was like a knife in the gut.
“Yamaguchi… I'm sorry.” He panted.
Yamaguchi wondered how well he could fake this so soon after the shock. Without the time to process what he'd seen, it was going to be a challenge, but he had been successfully lying about his feelings to Tsukki and himself for years already.
“What are you apologizing for?” He tried to smile to ease that troubled look on Tsukki's face, but the effort put into the false expression made his voice shake. "I'm the one who should be apologizing."
What happened with that girl, anyway? Did he just leave her standing there or what? He looked over Tsukki's shoulder and was mortified to see her peeking at them from around the corner. When she noticed he'd caught her watching, she yanked her head back out of view.
“I should have told you sooner so you didn't have to find out like this.” Tsukishima apologized with honest remorse. That sincerity in itself was heart crushing. Yamaguchi wanted to be reasonable and forgiving and just to get away to be alone for a while, but he found himself searching for answers anyway.
“So how long has it been, then?”
A month, Tsukki said. A whole month that he had noticed nothing while being kept in the dark. It occurred to him then that he had probably been lied to. Just about a month ago when Tsukishima had said he missed morning practice because he slept in, that had to have been a lie. Tsukki was never late to anything. He was probably being confessed to at that time, and he’d been hiding it since then.
Yamaguchi called out his falsification, taking on an accusatory tone in a growing rage. He was letting anger take over sadness because something inside him thought it would be better to yell than to cry. Tsukishima attempted to calm him down, which only made him more upset. With what little control he’d maintained, Yamaguchi stopped himself long enough to give himself an out.
“I just need some time… alone.” Yamaguchi had calmed his voice, but his heartbeat was still thrumming throughout his body. Tsukishima’s frown looked pained and reluctant, but he agreed to give him some space for a while without making any arguments. This barely made walking away any less excruciating.
As unfortunate as the entire situation he’d been plunged into was, Yamaguchi had to admit he was fortunate to have this occur after practice. He could go home and be alone. He didn’t have to sit through the rest of the school day or muddle through practice with this stress fresh in his mind. He wouldn’t run the risk of crying in front of anyone. Even so, as he sat in his room that evening, huddled up against the headboard with his knees against his chest, the tears weren’t coming. Staring across the room at the picture of him and Tsukki in their first year of junior high hanging on his corkboard didn’t bring tears to his eyes. After walking home alone, eating dinner with his parents, and even doing his homework, he was finally allowing himself to let out his emotions, his anger and embarrassment and despair, but none of that was happening. Yamaguchi fell asleep with nothing but dry eyes and a tired mind.
~
Waking up hours later proved to be much harder than falling asleep had been. He felt exponentially more tired than he had been the night before, but he still had to get up and go to school just like every other day. Life wasn't going to wait for him to pick himself back up. He left the house earlier, got to the club room earlier, entered the gym earlier than he normally would. That way he could safely assume he wouldn't run into Tsukishima before he was ready to. Hinata, Kageyama, and the third years were already there, and Hinata wasted no time jumping right to the point once he saw Yamaguchi.
“Mornin’! Don't tell me Tsukishima is skipping practice again.”
Of course they'd automatically be wondering where he was. The two of them were practically attached at the hip. One arriving at practice without the other was not a common occurrence. Yamaguchi had prepared himself for this question on the way here, because he knew he'd have to answer it sooner or later.
“Well, he's probably coming. We just didn't come together today.” In the other's minds, those two statements conflicted with each other. “We sort of had an argument yesterday. It’s no big deal.” Yamaguchi went on to give a particularly short summary of what the issue had been, trying to downplay it as best he could so they wouldn't ask any more questions. Surprise that Tsukishima had a girlfriend showed on all their faces, but they held themselves back from openly expressing it.
“Hey, if you need to talk to someone, your senpai are always here to listen!” Noya clapped a hand on the tall boy's shoulder. He and Tanaka both gave him reassuring thumbs up. Their support was well appreciated, but this wasn't something Yamaguchi could talk to anyone about.
Whenever Tsukishima did arrive, he was still giving Yamaguchi the space he'd asked for. The first years noticed immediately, but respectfully kept their thoughts and questions to themselves while Hinata quietly informed Yachi of the situation so that she was on the same page. He hadn’t become the center of attention, but he quickly noticed the way his teammates were glancing between him and Tsukishima more often than usual. It became increasingly harder to pretend not to notice their concern.
He intended to set his feeling aside to focus on practice, but seeing Tsukishima for the first time after their argument, Yamaguchi could take stock of his feelings in a less clouded state of mind. Tsukishima probably thought he was just angry, but that was one of the few things he wasn’t feeling right now. Yes, Tsukki had lied, but so had he. He'd been shooting down questions of ‘what’s bothering you’ with promises of ‘it's nothing’ for much longer than a month. Yamaguchi wasn't mad. He was hurting, and he hated to be melodramatic, but he couldn't imagine it ever hurting less.
Practice proceeded as normal for the most part. Other than Tsukishima, Hinata was Yamaguchi’s closest friend on the team. Perhaps he knew that, as he was talking with Yamaguchi more than he usually did. Getting through practice was a bit easier, thanks to that. As everyone was leaving the clubroom afterwards, Ennoshita pulled Yamaguchi aside to ask about what had happened. Yamaguchi told him the same thing he'd told the others earlier, trying nicely to make it clear that he really didn't want to talk about it anymore than that. He understood Ennoshita was just doing his duty as captain to make sure all his teammates were alright, but he seriously doubted telling him the truth would do anyone any good.
Ennoshita didn't appear to be convinced, but had to let him go so that they wouldn't be late for class. He left Yamaguchi with a well-intended offer to lend a listening ear. Well-intended, yes, but not something he could take him up on.
Class passed as slowly as he'd expected it to. For a long time, Yamaguchi had thought himself fortunate to have seat in one of the rows behind Tsukki’s. He could look at him as long as he wanted to without anyone really noticing. But now, he’d prefer not to have his eyes falling on the back of his friend’s head every other moment. He’d prefer to be in another room even, if the distance meant he could actually focus on the lesson.
The entire morning, he was dreading lunch time. He was sure his friend would give him the space he asked for, and he was glad for that, but it also meant that he would have to eat by himself. For years, Tsukki had been his only true friend. Anytime someone approached him of their own accord, they really just wanted to ask him about Tsukki, and since Tsukki rarely seemed to reciprocate their interest, it was almost always just the two of them.
Once morning classes ended, Yamaguchi kept his eyes down on his desk, rather than going straight to his friend as he usually would. He noticed Tsukishima glance back at him out of the corner of his eye before getting up and leaving the room. Did he have other friends Yamaguchi didn’t know about he could spend the break with? He had to be going to see her, though. Now that Yamaguchi knew, it didn’t need to be a secret from everyone anymore. That’s probably how it was.
Yamaguchi leaned back in his chair, stretching his arms over head. His sleep the night before had been restless and he felt stiff from all the tossing and turning. He opened his eyes from his yawn upon hearing the shuffling sound of the classroom door opening.
To his surprise and confusion, Kageyama Tobio was the one to poke his head inside and look around. He would never say it, but he sort of assumed that Kageyama was like him and didn’t have many friends outside of the volleyball club, so who was he looking for here? The answer became evident when their eyes met and Kageyama made a bee line for his desk. A large group of girls in the middle of the classroom turned to hushed tones and giggles once they noticed him. He walked right through their cloud of whispers as if it were nothing. He really was as uninterested in his own popularity as Yamaguchi had gathered from playing volleyball with him for over a year now.
He approached the desk with surprising confidence, considering they hardly ever talked outside of practice and other club activities. Maybe he had just come to ask for something or let him know about a change in practice time. Neither of those seemed likely, but honestly neither did him just coming out of the blue like this.
“Do you want to… eat lunch together?” He forced out, with the awkwardness Yamaguchi thought was missing. Kageyama couldn’t even manage a straight face anymore. He must have decided not to risk a creepy smile and settled for an ‘uneasy frown’ as Yamaguchi would call it.
“Uh, sure.”
Kageyama pulled an empty chair over to sit down opposite of him while Yamaguchi slid his lunchbox towards himself to make room on the desk.
“Don’t you usually eat lunch with Hinata?” Yamaguchi recalled Hinata complaining a few times about Kageyama ditching him during the break, so he assumed it was a sort of arrangement they had. They were together most of the time, anyway.
“We only eat together if we’re going to practice during the lunch break.” he responded with a hint of sourness.
That conversation ended just like that, and turned into a couple awkward minutes of eating their lunches in silence.
Yamaguchi couldn’t think of any reason Kageyama would seek him out like this other than the situation between Tsukishima and himself. He was here because, to some degree, he was being considerate of Yamaguchi. He had the forethought to think Tsukishima would go elsewhere during the break and Yamaguchi would be left by himself, and the kindness to actually do something about it.
Not to say that Kageyama was a bad person, but this wasn’t something Yamaguchi would have ever thought he would go out of his way to do for someone. He was grateful for it, since this was almost definitely outside of Kageyama's comfort zone.
Rather than letting gossiping whispers fill the silence between them, Yamaguchi struck up a conversation about the one interest he knew they had in common. With a bit of coaxing and some attempts at engaging him, the tension in Kageyama’s shoulders slowly disappeared and his speech came less forced and more naturally. He still did the lesser half of the talking, but that wasn’t out of character for him anyway.
Kageyama was recalling, in gratuitously specific detail, a college volleyball game he saw on tv several nights before, his thoughts on their strategies, and the strengths of their players. At this proximity, Yamaguchi could really see the way his eyes lit up when he was excited, how his face tensed up subconsciously to hold back the smile it wanted to make. He could safely assume that Kageyama’s second favorite thing after playing volleyball, was talking about volleyball.
“So, Kyoto university’s starting line up has changed a lot since their setter transferred to some place in Hokkaido, but-” Kageyama was finally taking lead of a conversation when the school bell sounded, marking the end of the lunch period. He swallowed his words and pulled himself back from his enthusiasm. If Yamaguchi could have extended their lunch by another hour, he would’ve. Not only had he been so preoccupied with Kageyama’s company that he’d barely eaten half of his lunch, but he really just didn’t want him to leave yet. To abandon him in this classroom to fend for himself again.
But there was nothing to be done about it. Kageyama was hurriedly gathering himself to make it back to his classroom. Despite the comfortableness they had eased into, their lunch period ended almost as awkwardly as it had begun, with a subdued nod from Kageyama and a wobbly smile and wave from Yamaguchi.
His eyes followed the Kageyama to the door, which slid open before he could reach for the handle. Tsukishima stood on the other side of the threshold.
“Eh-”
The blonde made a strange choked grunt followed by a surprisingly daunted expression upon seeing the setter looking back up at him. They exchanged no words, Kageyama forcefully brushed past him, leaving him baffled in his wake. Yamaguchi looked out the window beside him before Tsukki could notice he’d been watching their exchange. He felt it was something he wasn’t supposed to have seen.