Chapter Text
The scene before him was almost unbelievably peaceful, especially considering who was in it. For the first time in their time with Karasuno’s volleyball club, and possibly their lives, Kageyama and Hinata were completely silent. Both asleep with no snoring, shuffling, or questionable noises coming from either. Completely still, the sun shining through the windows and illuminating them on their futons. Right next to each other, huddled under Kageyama’s blanket while they cuddled, oblivious to the world around them.
It was so picturesque it looked like it belonged in a movie.
Instead, it was Tadashi’s reality as he sat in the doorway to the room, phone in hand, contemplating the moral dilemma in front of him.
To take a picture, or not to take a picture.
Tadashi knew he should leave them be, or better yet, wake them before anyone else could come along and find them like this. It would be the kind thing to do, and save them from any embarrassment they would face at the hands of the team. He could save them now, pretend like nothing happened, and leave them to figure out the weird tension they’d had since Hinata had learned to pull off quicks with his eyes open. It was probably— no definitely the right thing to do.
Tadashi’s phone suddenly felt heavier in his hands.
One photo wouldn’t hurt, right? As long as he didn’t show it to anyone, what Hinata and Kageyama didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. It would just be to reassure himself that it actually happened. Maybe it’d be a cute memory he could show at their wedding, it could be part of his speech as best man, which they better give him after all he had put up with. This was for cute memory purposes only, he reassured himself as he lifted his camera to take a photo of the two boys cuddled together. This was definitely for a good cause. Right as the shutter closed he heard voices begin from down the hall. The rest of the team was heading back to the room and now it was time for Tadashi to save them from embarrassment, like the hero he probably was.
He quickly ran over to them and began to try and push Kageyama away, and maybe even roll him over to make this look as normal as possible. He grunted as he shoved at Kageyama, trying his best to push him away from Hinata and not wake either of them up. It shouldn't have been a hard task but, wow Kageyama was heavy. Stupid muscle mass, Tadashi thought as he tried to push, Stupid muscle and stupid workout routines. The voices had begun to get louder and Tadashi gave up on trying to move them after realizing he hadn’t even moved Kageyama an inch, and focused on just getting Kageyama to face away from Hinata. He was going to be a good friend and not even Kageyama’s unreasonable amount of muscle mass would stop him.
Right as the voices reached the door Kageyama mercifully turned the other way in his sleep, ignoring Tadashi’s frantic pulling as if he hadn’t been using his entire body weight to try and move Kageyama for the past few minutes. Fine! That was fine! Tadashi would take his wins where they appeared.
Tadashi sighed in relief, then noticed Hinata frown in displeasure at the loss of warmth, one hand sleepily sticking out of his blanket, searching for Kageyama. Tadashi’s heart squeezed and he mentally cooed at how cute it was, then sneakily took another picture before lifting a pillow to destroy all his hard work.
Tanaka and Tsukishima walked into the room right in time to hear Tadashi scream “WAKE UP!” And slam the pillow directly onto Kageyama’s face. He mentally apologized and asked that Kageyama be merciful as he let go of the pillow and ran away.
Tanaka, Tsukishima, and Hinata all jumped at the noise, Kageyama twitched, but it was enough warning for Tadashi. He squeaked and ducked, just barely avoiding the pillow thrown at his head.
Kageyama grumbled and sat up, hair messy and face with a pillow shaped red mark covering it. Tadashi stifled a giggle while Tanaka winced at the red mark, Tsukishima looking on in the closest he could get to empathy towards Kageyama. The pillow-to-the-face method was one Tadashi had used on him before, and he knew just how hard Tadashi could hit. Hinata still seemed confused about what was happening, but was now mostly awake and began to sit up as well.
As the rest of the team walked into the room Tadashi gestured at the two disgruntled boys on the floor proudly.
“I woke them up!” He informed cheerily, hoping his smile didn’t look too much like the one of someone who had seen something he shouldn't have, and then proceeded to take a picture and hide the evidence.
Was that a criminal?
Tadashi decided that he probably wasn’t one. Plus, who was going to prosecute him for a crime like this, Coach? The universe? God?
Kageyama’s eyes finally focused in on him, then at the pillow behind Tadashi, and then seemed to process that Tadashi had basically admitted to attacking him. He scowled and moved to get up. Hinata’s pillow now in hand.
All Tadashi could think as he ran to hide behind Tsukishima, pillows flying toward him and Kageyama’s eyes burning a hole in his back, was if Kageyama had an interest in becoming a prosecutor.
After an uncomfortably tense stare down between Kageyama and Tsukishima, with Tadashi using Tsukishima as his Kageyama barrier, the day had continued as normal. Tadashi once again escaping Kageyama’s wrath.
With the exception of Tadashi’s phone burning a hole in his pocket throughout breakfast and the first hour of practice, everything was the same. Still, after his third missed serve Tadashi decided it was in his best interest to put it in his bag for now, it was golden week and he had to focus on perfecting his serve if he wanted to be put in a games more regularly.
He shook his head as he got back on the court, trying to focus himself. He took a deep breath holding the ball out in front of him, then looking past it to the other side of the net.
No missing this time.
He took a breath and tossed the ball in the air, running up to the back line and then jumping, his arm making a perfect arc through the air. He felt the ball hit the center of his palm with a satisfying smack and watched as the ball floated past the net. He mentally cheered.
Then he saw he had hit it right at Nishinoya.
He let his cheer die as Nishinoya lit up and prepared to receive it. Well there’s always next time. Right as he had resigned himself to watch Nishinoya’s perfect receive and to just try again, the ball suddenly curved upward, away from Nishinoya’s arms.
Tadashi began to get ready to cheer again, when Nishinoya adjusted and began to stand up a bit and raise his arms to try and catch it with an overhead pass. Tadashi felt the resignation begin to rise again until the ball finally hit.
Right into Nishinoya’s chest.
Tadashi’s mouth dropped open a bit, ready to apologize as Nishinoya stumbled backwards. Then Nishinoya stopped, teetering dangerously for a second before regaining his footing. He looked down and realized that instead of receiving the ball he had basically caught it between his upper arms. He looked at Tadashi’s concerned face and laughed. He picked up the ball and threw it back to Tadashi.
“We’ll call that one a tie!” He called out, shooting Tadashi a thumbs up as he ran to the other side of the court to try and find another serve to receive.
Tadashi caught the ball and let out a breath, it was probably time for some water.
He walked over to the benches and grabbed a bottle of water from Yachi, thanking her as he began to drink from it. He turned to watch the court, watching Kageyama, Tanaka, and Kinoshita practice their serves. He watched as the balls land on the other side of the court, each hitting the court louder than the last. Maybe if he-
“Your serves are improving.”
Tadashi startled as Tsukishima’s quiet voice suddenly materialized next to him. He smiled as he realized he had just been complimented, and by Tsukki no less!
He shot Tsukishima a bright smile, with Tsukishima turning to face the benches in response, but Tadashi knew he wasn’t great with words. Well, nice words at least. Some words probably came a little too easily to Tsukki at times. Tadashi could also see that his ears were completely red and giggled to himself. He knew Tsukishima had been trying to be nice more often, and that’s really all he could ask for. In fact, he hadn’t even really asked for him to be nicer, but he wasn’t going to question a good thing. Now, in a considerably better mood he didn’t really think about Tsukishima digging through Tadashi's bag and pulling out his phone.
“Do you have a picture of the textbook for our math homework?” Tsukishima asked, changing the subject from Tadashi’s serves and moving onto a more neutral topic. “I forgot to take them for the assignment our teacher gave us to finish this week.”
Tadashi took another swig from his water bottle, thinking about it. Had he taken a picture of the textbook? He watched Tsukishma scroll past his home screen and move to open his camera roll. He had taken that picture of a dog before they got on the bus, then the sky had looked so nice he had snapped a quick shot, there was the selfie he had gotten last night with Tsukki as they brushed their teeth, and then he remembered taking a photo of Kageyama and Hin-
Oh no.
He quickly turned towards Tsukishima, opening his mouth telling him not to look. Too busy trying to stop his friend to remember he had been in the middle of something.
His yell of “Wait don’t look!” Instead turned into something that sounded more like “ Wadoh Loo! ” And was accompanied by all the water in Tadashi’s mouth graciously leaving his mouth.
His face immediately burned as he realized what had just happened, and while it wasn’t ideal that most of the water ended up on himself, at least he didn’t spit it on anyone. That probably would’ve made this one of the most embarrassing moments of his life. He looked down to asses the damage to his clothes and quickly corrected himself as he realized something because this was definitely the most embarrassing moment of his life. Because, to his horror, Tsukishima’s arms are in fact wet because Tadashi was the worst and accidentally spit water on him.
The entire gym had gone silent at Tadashi’s outburst, which meant that not only had the entire team watched him spit water onto his best friend, but they had watched him do so to make sure he hadn’t gone through his phone. A scenario that, without context, was horrible enough that Tadashi didn’t even want to think about.
The worst part was that Tsukishima didn’t even look mad, which Tadashi probably would’ve found a way to work around. Instead he looked more intrigued. And definitely confused. But the way he raised his eyebrow at Tadashi meant that Tadashi didn’t even register when Tsukishima finally broke the silence and told him,
“Yamaguchi that’s gross.”
Tanaka and Nishinoya took that as permission to harass him their twin yells of “YAMAGUCHIIII,” not even making Tadashi flinch as they both tackled him. They immediately began asking what on earth Tadashi could be hiding. And that really, there was nothing to be ashamed of. That they were all teenagers here and they understood. And while Tadashi could feel what felt like the majority of the blood in his body going to his face to make it as red as possible at their words, the hard hitter was the look Tsukishima was pinning him with as he wiped his arm dry.
The look that meant this conversation was nowhere near over, and that if Tsukishima hadn’t been interested before in what Tadashi had on his phone before, he definitely was now. That there was no way Tsukishima was letting this go. Tadashi took a moment to pity himself and the things he did for Hinata and Kageyama. Tsukishima returned the phone to Tadashi’s bag, and only glanced at him before returning to practice.
Tadashi let out a sigh of relief, Tanaka and Nishinoya still pushing him around and trying to get him to reveal what he could be hiding as Ukai finally snapped at them to get back to practice. His face felt like it was going to burn for the rest of his life.
He better be the best man at Kageyama and Hinata’s wedding.