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Yamaguchi
“I-I, I’m willing,” Yamaguchi stuttered, face pale and hands clammy as the older woman sitting before simply watched, silent. “I want-I want to know, um, because…because,” he finished off lamely, unable to give a good reason verbally.
The woman sat up in her chair, eyes still stoic. “You truly believe in a lack of future that you are willing to give up a part of your past?” She asked, cryptically.
Frowning, and taking a few seconds to try and register her meaning, Yamaguchi nodded. “I mean, yeah. He’s my best friend, I doubt…I doubt he’ll ever become my lover,” he said, bitterly. “I guess…” He rubbed his face, agitated at having to talk about it again. “I just want to know if he’ll still be in my future. At all.” He dropped his hands to his laps. It was a pathetic wish. But he’d be living with his one-sided love for the greater part of eighteen years and now, he just wanted to know.
“And you are aware of the cost?” The woman hummed, quirking a brow in a way that Yamaguchi just wanted to rip it off and tell her to get on with.
“Yes,” he said, trying not to snap. “I lose an important memory in return.” I have plenty, he wanted to say. Childhood days with his family. Volleyball days with his friends. Every single day with Tsukishima. Though it ached to say it, he could afford to lose one.
The woman reached out, palm open. She nodded, “what you ask for will have an equal cost.”
“I know,” Yamaguchi said testily, as he reached out to grab her hand in return. He was sweating and shaking, and the constant reminders of the ‘cost’ was not making his nerves any better.
“Therefore,” the woman said, grabbing his hand and holding tightly, her eyes slipping shut, “the one you look for in your future, will disappear from you past.”
The phrase was barely able to register in Yamaguchi’s mind when his eyes widened and a ‘wait-!’ meant to come from his mouth. Then his vision blackened and as he teetered on the edge of unconsciousness, he heard the woman’s voice in his head.
He’ll never leave you, nor will he abandon you. The days coming forward he’ll be at your side, but now therein lays the question… After today, will you still stay by his?
When Yamaguchi opened his eyes, he realized he was sitting on a small, comfortable loveseat, in a gaudily furnished house that reminded him a little of a circus. Slowly, it creeped back into his mind, the reason he was here. He had wanted to ask a question, that’s right.
As if on cue, the fortune teller stepped out from what he presumed to be the kitchen, for two mugs of something steaming were in her hand. She came towards him, offering him one.
“Thanks,” Yamaguchi mumbled, taking it and breathing in the scent. Hot chocolate, his favourite. “So, uh, what’s the answer?” He asked, before blinking when he realized he had forgotten the question.
Before he could ask again, the woman peered at him. “Yamaguchi, do you know who Tsukishima Kei is?”
Shrugging, Yamaguchi shook his head no. It wasn’t familiar, and he wondered why it mattered. “Why? Who he is?” He asked, taking a sip from his hot chocolate.
The woman gave him a soft, somewhat sad smile, and shook her head. “Well, I suppose that’s your answer,” she said in a soft voice. Then, louder, “soon, you’ll come to know him.”
Tsukishima
This was… wrong. Absolutely, and extremely wrong. Tsukishima felt like the world was about to tip over and dump him in hell when they told him the news. He stood, wavering outside the door, unsure what even the next step should be.
Yamaguchi had come back from his trip to…god knew where, after claiming that he wanted to do a little self-discovery for two weeks. No one questioned it, since Yamaguchi liked to travel anyway, and everyone knew that he’d be safe.
No one could suspect that he’d come back, reporting about a few days in the hospital, and with doctor’s orders for treatments on the fact that he had amnesia.
‘Slight amnesia,’ they told Tsukishima, when they took in his slack-jawed look and rising panic that he tried so desperately to hide. ‘He remembers practically everything except-‘ And that’s where they faltered.
‘Except what?’ Tsukishima had asked, swallowing the lump in his throat. What could Yamaguchi have forgotten? How to play volleyball? How to speak coherently? Regardless what it was, Tsukishima would help him through it, like he always had.
His brother had breathed heavily before saying: ‘You.’
That caused for a night of maybe one too many drinks.
Outside of Yamaguchi’s house – a place he was so familiar with, a place he had practically also grown up in – he felt out of place. Would it be even normal to walk in, if Yamaguchi didn’t know who he was?
The question was answered for him when the door opened itself, and his brother was standing in the hall. “Oh, good, I thought you got lost,” Akiteru teased, before grabbing Tsukishima’s arm and pulling him in. Then, in a lower voice, “he’s just chilling in the living room. I told him you were coming.”
Tsukishima worked to keep his questions and thoughts in check. “And?” he simply asked.
Akiteru shrugged. “We’re just reminding him of things here and there. He really does have a decent amount of memories intact but… I think it’s better if you yourself go talk to him.”
Wordlessly, Tsukishima nodded and brushed past his brother towards the living room. Stepping in, he could see the top head of Yamaguchi’s messy, brown hair above the couch. The TV was on and the game controller was in his hand. Typical. Natural. But now Tsukishima was here to break the flow.
He cleared his throat, unsure what to say, and Yamaguchi turned to look at him. What felt like a blow to his chest nearly made him stagger back when he saw no recognition in those hazel eyes, and instead was the hesitant, polite look Yamaguchi had those many years ago when they had first met.
Tsukishima wanted to run over to him, pull him in his arms and yell at him for being so idiotic that he had gotten himself landed in the hospital. He wanted to punch a wall when he found out that of all the things, Yamaguchi had forgotten him. He wanted to cry when the other boy did nothing but sit there, expectantly waiting for introductions, most likely.
Forcing his legs to move, Tsukishima walked over to the couch, sitting on the opposite end, giving them more than enough space to not be too friendly. Despite all the prep Akiteru had given him on how to approach a person who had forgotten you, Tsukishima still felt cold and empty, unsure of what to do.
“Hi,” Yamaguchi started, nearly startling Tsukishima into leaving right then and there. Who was he kidding; he could barely do this. This awkward tension between them, belying this introduction. Yamaguchi was waiting for him, and Tsukishima didn’t know what his brother told him. His breath hitched when Yamaguchi continued hesitantly, with: ‘Your brother told me you were, um, my best friend.’
At that, Tsukishima felt to leave right then and there-
“Tsukishima, right?”
He wanted to shudder; the way his name fell from Yamaguchi’s lips was so foreign, and he couldn’t bear to hear ‘Tsukki’ in that tone of voice.
“Um, yeah,” he said, forcing his voice not to crack. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Is it…is it true you really don’t…”
At that, Yamaguchi flushed a little in what could be embarrassment or guilt, dropping his gaze as he nodded. “Yeah, you…you’re not really familiar. I-I’m sure that must be awful to hear, I’m sorry, I just don’t…” He shrugged, trailing off helplessly. Tsukishima simply stared at him, unsure what to say. Taking a breath, Yamaguchi looked at him with a hopeful smile. “I mean, I’m willing to get to know you again. I’m sure if we were best friends before, it can’t be too hard to do it again.”
Again.
There were too many things that happened between them that were sacred that an ‘again’ could never justify their meaning.
“Uh, sure,” Tsukishima replied, wincing when his voice sounded hoarse. Yamaguchi must’ve picked it up because he sighed.
“This is weird; I’m making this awkward aren’t I. I’m sorry Tsuki-Tsukishima. If you don’t want to start over-“
Tsukishima let out a short, bark of a laugh, startling the other to stop speaking and look at him curiously. He shook his head. “It’s not… well yeah, it’s weird. It’s weird and it’s shit that out of everyone, you forgot me-“ he paused, trying to regroup his thoughts before he started irrationally placing himself as the victim. “It’s just that I got worried, you idiot.” He saw the surprise flash in Yamaguchi’s face. “But you won’t understand how much, since you don’t know me anymore.” This time, it was hurt.
“Tsukishima…”
“Trust me, I get it. You really couldn’t help the situation or the injury. I’m just…trying to process this.” He looked towards the coffee table, feeling Yamaguchi shift awkwardly in front of him. “There’s a lot of stuff we did that…that we can’t really recreate or redo anymore,” he said, trying to hide the sorrow in his voice, and playing it off as something to be expected. But when he looked up, confusion and curiosity were in Yamaguchi’s eyes.
“What do you mean? Were we-“
Tsukishima stood up before Yamaguchi could finish the question, not wanting to answer anything that didn’t have a concrete answer. He grabbed the other’s wrist and pulled him from the couch into a fierce hug, hearing the startled yelp of the other. Yamaguchi froze against his chest and Tsukishima squeezed a little hard. After a few seconds, hands crept up his own back, squeezing tightly back in return.
“I’m just glad you’re safe,” Tsukishima mumbled, trying to squash the emotions in his chest into something manageable. “We’ll start over, and you’ll get to know me again, but before we do, promise me you won’t ever do something so stupid again, idiot.”
The startled laugh returned and Yamaguchi wriggled out of his grasp, discomfort but also happiness on his face. “Are you always…” he struggled to find the words, before settling on something that sounded normal, “A dick?”
Tsukishima grinned faintly, nodding. “Yeah. Pretty much.”
Starting over with Yamaguchi was absolutely horrible.
Every day was like a reminder to Tsukishima that his best friend didn’t really know him – that every memory they made wasn’t an addition to a strong foundation, but just a new building block to this new relationship they were trying to recreate.
He visited Yamaguchi like normal, despite the first week being a constant pain in his chest. The unfamiliar smiles, the ‘getting to know you’ questions, it made him want to tear his hair out. Yet he could tell that Yamaguchi was truthfully willing to try, and so was he, if not for the sake of their past friendship, but for helping Yamaguchi through this one.
Their friends helped them here and there, not trying to overwhelm Yamaguchi with information, but reminding him of things that he and Tsukishima had used to do together.
It was interesting to see him flush a bright red when Akiteru told him that since childhood, they had insisted on taking baths together all the way until late middle school.
They were on the back porch, sipping mugs of warm leftover miso soup from cups from the night’s dinner when Yamaguchi asked him, ‘so were we really not… you know?’
Tsukishima stilled, trying not to display anything that would give the wrong impression. Slowly and stoically, he took another sip. “What do you mean?”
From the corner of his eye, he could see Yamaguchi shift uncomfortably, not looking at him. “You know… Everyone talks that we were like…um,” he trailed off, and Tsukishima could tell that it was absolutely killing him to try and phrase around what he truthfully wanted to say. Not that he would be any better; if it weren’t for the evening sky, Yamaguchi would’ve been able to see the hard red of his neck creeping from beneath his sweater collar.
“We’ve been best friends since early grade school,” he said simply, “everyone knows that.”
Yamaguchi frowned then nodded, letting out a visible sigh. “Yeah, that’s true. Sorry I forgot.”
“It’s not your fault, idiot,” Tsukishima said with a soft exhale, an ‘argument’ they’ve had too many times to count.
“Just can’t believe I forgot someone like you.”
At that, Tsukishima bit the inside of his cheek, turning towards the fading sun as he couldn’t trust himself to look at Yamaguchi.
“Yeah,” he mumbled. “Neither can I.”
A year went by, filled with ‘rebuilding.’ Rebuilding their friendship, reviewing their memories, recreating what they used to have. Yamaguchi seemed happily surprised whenever he learned something about the two of them, especially how close they were. The question was still there, reminiscent of when Yamaguchi had looked at him and asked: ‘were we…?’
It was there in his eyes whenever Tsukishima brought him coffee to work, or they went out for food just to hang out. It was there on nights he stayed at Yamaguchi’s apartment, playing video games and falling asleep on one another on the sofa.
Tsukishima just didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t something they’d ever talked about. It was something that Tsukishima had thought about, and obviously now Yamaguchi was too, but he wasn’t sure what to tell the other boy about his past.
Would he be lying if he answered ‘Yeah, we basically were?’
“You look hard at thought,” Yamaguchi said, walking into the living room and bopping him on the head lightly, startling Tsukishima out of his thoughts. “What’s on your mind?” He asked, dropping to the ground in front of Tsukishima, holding out the bag of chips in his hand. Wordlessly, Tsukishima reached inside for some.
Over the year, Yamaguchi had accepted Tsukishima into his life flawlessly, and their friendship felt as good as it was before. Just with a little more intensity.
“Nothing,” Tsukishima denied naturally, watching Yamaguchi roll his eyes.
“Sure. I’m sure you always say that whenever I ask.”
“I do,” he replied.
Yamaguchi nudged his knee with his knuckles. “Come on, what’s up? You’ve been brooding for like, the last 3 days.”
“I have not,” Tsukishima protested immediately, before sullenly sinking back into the sofa. Just like before, it was hard to not tell Yamaguchi the truth. “I was thinking about your question,” he said honestly.
Raising an eyebrow, Yamaguchi peered at him curiously. “What question?”
“The one you keep asking me.”
At that, Yamaguchi stared at him dubiously. “I ask you a lot of stuff but I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Tsukishima exhaled, taking a moment. “We never dated.”
Yamaguchi blinked, “Oh.”
“Yeah. Though if you’ll ask anyone else, they’ll say otherwise.”
At that, Yamaguchi’s face shuttered a little and his voice turned stony. “Oh? Did something happen between us? Have you-“
“No, Tadashi,” Tsukishima said quickly, stopping him before any accusations or assumptions could come forth. He watched as Yamaguchi seemed to wither at the use of his name. “We just… never talked about it. Never made anything official. People thought we practically were, but we never really confronted it together.” He shrugged. “I didn’t know if you’d ever want to, and I never pushed myself so…” He trailed off, sighing. “That’s why I just didn’t know what to tell you when you asked.”
Yamaguchi was silent, the bag of chips in his hand unmoving. Tsukishima peeked a look at him and saw that he was staring intently at the couch cushion. Without a word, he stood up and walked towards the kitchen.
“Yamaguchi-“ Tsukishima said, standing up quickly. The other boy had already disappeared in the kitchen and the sound of the garbage closing came through. He stopped, wary.
When he reappeared in the doorframe, a tired look was in his eyes. The chips bag was gone and Yamaguchi simply looked at him.
“Hey, I’m sorry, I just didn’t know and I don’t know why it’s come up recently but I was just thinking and-“ Tsukishima felt his mouth ramble mindlessly, trying to justify anything and everything he did. But when Yamaguchi stepped forward and grabbed him by the front of his shirt, yanking him down until their lips met in a brief, slightly painful crush of their lips, the words fell silent.
It was short, and absolutely nothing like the starburst-kisses described in books and movies, and when Yamaguchi pushed him back Tsukishima swore his lip stung a little probably from where a tooth scraped at it. He stared at Yamaguchi in shock, watching him rub his face in weariness.
“I…”
“Tsukki, something came back to me, a couple of weeks ago.”
“I- Okay?”
Yamaguchi shoved his hands in his pockets before looking up at him. “It was a dream, mostly, but a lot of it felt real.” Tsukishima nodded silently, still trying to follow the current progress of events. “I met a woman and she made a deal with me. That I’d learn something important, at the cost of something equally as important.”
“What do you mean?” Tsukishima asked, confusion overriding the bewildering feelings of being kissed.
With a hard exhale, Yamaguchi pinched his eyes shut. “Like I said, this was a dream so I don’t know if it was true or not, but I chose to learn something and I gave up-“ he paused, and it looked like the word was choked in his throat.
It was enough for Tsukishima to understand. He took in a quick breath, straightening up when he realized what Yamaguchi was going to say. “You didn’t…” He felt cold realization wash over his chest. “Yamaguchi. What did you give up?”
“I didn’t give it up on purpose,” Yamaguchi quickly snapped back. “I just-“
“Wait,” Tsukishima shook his head quickly, holding up a hand. “Wait, you said you were in a car accident. You said you were in the hospital. What the fuck are you talking about?”
He could see Yamaguchi wince just a little at his voice but he didn’t understand. It wasn’t logical that a dream could be the reason why Yamaguchi forgot him, but to have heard it so out of the blue…
“Tsukishima, listen… I looked into the paperwork not too long after the dream…” He frowned. “The hospital I went to never had me in for a concussion. The documents were fake.”
Tsukishima could feel himself freeze up all over again. “No fucking way.”
“That’s why I’m saying I know It’s just a dream but-“
“Why’d you kiss me?”
Yamaguchi startled, looking at him in surprise. “I- what?”
Tsukishima felt like he was drowning. Too many things were being revealed at once and so he decided to grasp at the first thing he knew he could understand first. “You kissed me. Why?”
Now, now Yamaguchi had the audacity to flush. His gaze flickered away before coming back to Tsukishima’s, confident and honest. “Because I feel like we should’ve had already kissed. A long time ago. And-and, with everything that we… with who we are it just felt right. It feels right. Does that answer your question?”
Sure. Maybe. Tsukishima was just hearing words and was probably going to process them later. “So why did you kiss me now?”
Yamaguchi’s mouth gaped for a moment before he swallowed. “Because I figured this was my last chance.”
Tsukishima frowned, “Yamaguchi-“
“Look, Tsukki. I just told you that I could’ve possible traded your entire presence in my life for…something, I don’t even know what it was. But that’s a shitty thing to do, and I absolutely hate myself for it.” He raised his head, running his fingers through messy, brown hair. “I think I’ve told you once. I don’t know why the hell I forgot you, someone like you, and whatever I must’ve done it for must’ve been super important or fucking life changing because…Hell, Tsukki you changed my life, apparently. But I completely threw you under the bus for whatever it was.”
He gently eased past Tsukishima’s frozen form, heading towards where he had left his bag. “I need to give you time. I need to also figure out what...exactly I exchanged my whole life with you for and-“
Tsukishima had already turned and followed him, grabbing his arm and forcing him to turn back. “Yamaguchi-“
The arm in his hand was ripped out of its grasp and when Yamaguchi jerked his hand back, Tsukishima could see that he was trembling. He wouldn’t look his way and there was tension in his shoulders as he reached down for his bag, shrugging it over his shoulder. “Tsukki, I’m sorry I lost it right now, but I think I just wasn’t prepared to hear that… we could’ve, you know? And that you could’ve or I could’ve and we just didn’t.”
“It’s not your fault-“
“It is my fault, and what you must’ve gone through this whole past month was my fault too,” Yamaguchi said, desperately. “You’re saying I never made a move? Took the initiative? I’m going to go home and yell at myself for not doing that all my life, Tsukki, because god, it’s been killing me that I couldn’t have asked you out this past year.”
Tsukishima honestly felt like his head was spinning with the amount of unpacking happening. He gaped unattractively, hand still hanging in the air where he had grabbed Yamaguchi.
“I thought that something happened between us and because of it, we can’t, you know, we couldn’t do anything. I can’t believe I was too scared to do it before and now it’s too late-“
“It’s not too late-“
“Tsukki I took your best friend away,” Yamaguchi said forcefully, voice cracking at the end. “And I gave up knowing mine. How can you look me in the eye and say it’s still okay?”
Tsukishima waved his arm stupidly. He was at a loss of words, unsure how to tell Yamaguchi that it wasn’t true without making it seem like he just completely ignored the ‘I gave up the memories of you for something else’ part.
“You… how are you sure you made this deal, or whatever?” He was finally able to say.
Yamaguchi looked down, shrugging. “I feel like I know. And you don’t deserve having to deal with this, with me.”
“Stop that,” Tsukishima said, shaking his head and running his fingers through his hair swiftly in irritation.
“Stop what?”
“Stop- stop assuming you know what I’m thinking. Fuck, Tadashi, let me think for a second.” Almost instantly, Yamaguchi shut his mouth and stood straighter, staring over Tsukishima’s shoulder, waiting.
He had to sort through his thoughts and he knew that he had to do it quickly. Yamaguchi was always the type of person to wait, but he knew that in this moment he did not think that was the case. Yamaguchi liked him, hell, Tsukishima liked him in return. And he was right, why didn’t they do anything about it before? Why did they have to wait until Yamaguchi came crashing down with guilt and sorrow before they realized they had passed their chance so long ago?
But ultimately, Yamaguchi traded him for something. Traded him for something that was worth more than Tsukishima. To be fair, he wasn’t a shit friend and he knew that there were thousands of things more important than him in anyone’s life. He didn’t expect himself to be the centre of Yamaguchi’s world. The only thing was that the way Yamaguchi spoke made it sound like he was.
“You said you didn’t choose.” Tsukishima said. “You didn’t give up the memories about me on purpose.”
“No. No, it didn’t feel that way. Tsukishima, I don’t know what the hell I might’ve given the memories up for, but I regret it. I regret it so much.”
“Then that’s fine,” Tsukishima said with a breath, straightening and looking at him. “That’s okay. It doesn’t matter anymore.”
Yamaguchi let out a short, harsh laugh. “Yeah, as if. Tsukki, I told you, I took away-“
“But you gave him back,” Tsukishima said, reaching forward and grasping the other’s arms with both hands, squeezing tightly. Yamaguchi’s eyes widened, and Tsukishima shook him lightly. “You came back and you’re here and even though you gave me up, you’re still here. Don’t you think if what you gave me up for was so important that I was gone from your life, you’d have kicked me out again a while ago?”
Blinking rapidly, Yamaguchi stuttered, “I-I don’t understand.”
“Tadashi. It’s okay. If you really didn’t think I belonged in your life, then I wouldn’t be here. And if I didn’t think you were worth it to me to try and recover the friendship we created together before, I wouldn’t have walked into your house that day after Akiteru told me you had forgotten me.”
“You can’t actually believe that, Tsukki-“
Tsukishima surged forward, capturing his lips in a deep kiss that Yamaguchi tried to struggle from but quickly gave up when he realized that Tsukishima wasn’t doing it to shut him up, but because he wanted to. He pulled back almost as soon as he had started to look the other in the eyes.
“Can you believe me when I say I don’t care? I really don’t. I probably should, but what happened in the past is in the past.”
Tears pricked the corner of Yamaguchi’s eyes as he wriggled himself out of Tsukishima’s grasp. “You don’t understand. Why aren’t you angrier about this? Why can’t you be upset at me, at what I did?”
“Why do you want me to be?” Tsukishima argued back, taking a step back to give the other space. “Yamaguchi, it’s okay-“
“Tsukki you don’t fucking understand,” Yamaguchi said, hands clenching the strap of his bag so tightly his knuckles were coloured white. “I don’t ever want to be that person to you. To throw all of you away for something. You’re so important to me that I can’t even believe myself.” He took one step back before shaking his head and rushing past him, towards the door. “Just give me time.”
“Yamaguchi-!”
“Give me time, Tsukki, please,” he begged, reaching the door and stopping to whirl around and hold his other hand out, halting Tsukishima in his tracks. “You’re only okay with it because I just confessed I loved you and that you felt the same. But I don’t ever want to put you in the situation where you’re just some concept or memory I could afford to give up.”
Spluttering, Tsukishima stared at him. “That’s- what? That is not what I’m thinking at all!”
The door opened and Tsukishima felt his chest go empty when he realized that nothing he could say would stop Yamaguchi from leaving.
“Tsukki, please. For me. Just…give yourself a day or something.” Yamaguchi sounded miserable and Tsukishima wanted to yell at him, to say ‘just accept this, whatever this is, and let’s be happy together!’ “’I wish I could’ve remembered everything you were to me.’ Do you hear how shitty that sounds? So take a day to figure out yourself that you don’t deserve something like this.”
Tsukishima felt like slumping against the wall, but he didn’t, and instead just watched Yamaguchi step out the front door.