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Having Yamaguchi wrap his fingers with tape is a habit Tsukishima brought with him up until he started playing professionally for the Frogs.
It started way back in high school, when he first injured his digits. Yamaguchi wordlessly took it upon himself to take care of him, a silent declaration that he won't get hurt under his best friend's watch. The lightness of Tadashi's touch back then spoke of the weight of the action itself.
For a long time he would watch Yamaguchi carefully adhere the tape along the length of his fingers. Yamaguchi will silently count, one, two, three... lips moving without a sound.
Tsukishima then learned to read every quirk and quiver of Yamaguchi's mouth, how he sometimes bites onto his lips when finding where the tape starts proved to be challenging. Sometimes Kei's gaze would wander a bit further, tracing with his sight where a new freckle showed itself, or on the slight scrunch of the other boy's nose, maybe even on the delicate flutter of his thin yet long lashes, tracing the beginnings of crow's feet at the edge of his best friend's eyes. Today his bangs leaned a little more to the left than usual.
The only thing that could break him out of this trance is the abrupt lost of familiar warmth over his hands.
Hands. Tanned, freckled, Yamaguchi's skin is a great contrast to his paler complexion. Tsukishima often wondered how it would look to clasp their fingers together. How if instead of sweat where his digits met his palm, he'd feel Yamaguchi's hand.
Will it also be a snug fit like the tape Tadashi carefully bound around my fingers?
He would like to know. But for now, for now he'd keep what lingered of Yamaguchi's warm touch within his hands.
It did not take long for it to be too much to hold.
Kei thought that it was enough. The touches. His index finger ghosting above the base of Yamaguchi's thumb and Yamaguchi, oh Yamaguchi, closing his digits upon Kei's finger to keep it within his palm. And, like a child caught trying to sneak a candy in his bag, Kei bashfully looked up only to see Yamaguchi sweetly smile at him.
At that he felt like screaming.
Because how can something so brief, so silly, send him urges to wrap his best friend within his arms?
Sometimes I feel like Tadashi does this on purpose.
The only thing he manged to do was pull his finger back. Rubbing it with his own thumb, feeling the scalding sensation the other boy had given him.
It burned.
It burned like a cup of tea, like the soup he had that morning. Like freshly fallen tears. Like when sometimes their elbows are accidentally touching. It burned like the sun that summer they spent away in Tokyo camping, like the feeling of a spike he blocked successfully.
It stung like skin freshly unwrapped from the tape he has a hard time unraveling.
Slowly the blood rushed back in his fingertips, scorching its way through. A fiery realization that No, I can't take this anymore.
For how can he entirely hold Tadashi if he kept himself bound? He cannot grasp Yamaguchi as a whole with the way he's going.
The adhesive still stuck on his fingers brought him back to reality, and Yamaguchi was there, just within his reach. Always has been. Just a little further. So like a prayer he clasped his hands together and held them out, palms facing up, as if surrendering his hold and all of him to Yamaguchi. And Yamaguchi gladly took them within his.
They never let go of each other after that.
Tadashi still tapes Kei's fingers. Sometimes he rubs the scar of that injury from high school. Most times he kisses the fingertips (and Kei's lips) for good luck. And Kei always, always, holds on Tadashi's hands.