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In your first approximation, Yamaguchi Tadashi is almost unassuming.
He sits two desks away from you at the seat near the window, his tall, lanky frame in a slouch as he tries to make himself appear smaller than he is. He speaks gently, often needing to be asked to repeat himself, and his lunches are spent with Tsukishima Kei (which are the only times he doesn’t speak so gently).
You almost forget he’s there sometimes.
So when you’re paired for an assignment in last period science, you introduce yourself to him again, hoping he’ll give you his name as it had so impolitely slipped your mind.
He tells you he knows a bit about what your project and you’re thankful because, well, you don’t know the first thing about Alpha Centauri, much less what a star system really is. He scribbles his number on the margin of your notebook and you promise to text him later as you gather your books to leave for the day.
It isn’t until midnight that you remember to do so, sending a quick apology message to the number given to you.
Thankfully, you get a reply almost immediately.
From: Yamaguchi Tadashi (school)
[00:14]
Don’t worry! ^^
[00:14]
I’ll see you in class tomorrow
[00:15]
Don’t sleep so late!
With an involuntary smile, you assure him you won’t and wish him a good night before turning your phone off and completing your night-time routine.
You don’t know why, but you go to bed feeling just a bit more content with the world.
-
You learn that Alpha Centauri is a planetary system and that it is comprised of not one, but three stars. One of these stars—Proxima Centauri—is the closest star to your own galaxy, at a modest distance of approximately 4.24 lightyears away from the sun.
You squint as he relays this information to you, his words backed by a stack of official-looking website printouts.
“The stars don’t look that far,” you remark, with slight scepticism. How was it possible that you could see them on any clear night if they were trillions of kilometres away?
Yamaguchi laughs, a bright, mirthful noise without condescension. “They do seem really far away, don’t they? But some of them are huge, like, they can be a hundred times larger than our own Sun!”
He continues talking about the stars and the galaxies and you can’t help but feel unimaginably small in the scheme of what he’s describing. There’s so much out there but you’re so impossibly far away and so impossibly insignificant.
“Are you okay?” Yamaguchi asks, after stopping in the middle of a sentence about yellow dwarf stars.
You nod, keeping your eyes on your notebook in front of you. “Just a little overwhelmed,” you admit.
“Oh,” he lets out a strained laugh, “I’m sorry if it was too much, I didn’t mean to go on and on like that. We don’t really need to put that in the project or anything, I just…I just know a lot of useless facts about space and that kinda stuff.”
His fingers play with the pen in its grasp, spinning it in erratic circles. You notice the freckles peeking out from the cuffs of his long-sleeved uniform jacket, creeping close but never touching the light on the back of his hands.
Like the universe, you think. A smattering of stars in the dark.
“No,” you assure him with a smile, “It wasn’t too much. I think it’s all really cool and I didn’t know you knew so much, Yamaguchi-kun.”
His face visibly relaxes and he mirrors your expression in earnest.
“If you want, I can recommend you this docu-series that I watched last month,” he suggests, immediately lighting up when you nod yes. Something about his enthusiasm draws you and you can’t help but observe him as he scrawls the details on a lined sheet of notebook paper.
In the rays of the late afternoon sun, Yamaguchi’s tan skin is ablaze with gold. The light casts long shadows across the left side of his face, deepening the usually soft features into something more intense.
He looks up at you, eyes bright, and without warning, the world upends itself.
You had never noticed Yamaguchi Tadashi before, but you definitely notice him now.
-
From: Yamaguchi ★
[20:56]
Ahh (>_<) I forgot you can only watch the series if you have a paid access through the planetarium website
[20:56]
Tsukki says I can just give you my login info
To: Yamaguchi ★
[20:59]
Is it okay if we watch it together?
[21:00]
I mean, after the project and if you have time!!
From: Yamaguchi ★
[21:03]
!! Of course
[21:04]
I’ll let you know when I’m free ^^
-
The soft press of his body against yours is enough to send the circuits of your heart into overdrive. You chew at your lip, wondering if he can feel the electricity thrumming under your skin like a live wire.
The documentary is as you’d expected it to be; displays of computer-generated deep space images with immersive yet informative voiceovers. It’s interesting and you’re sure if you were watching with any other person, you’d be at least mildly invested. But you were next to Yamaguchi and Yamaguchi was far more captivating than all of the colourful shrouds of stardust making up the Orion Nebula.
A freckled arm bumps against your own as he adjusts his grip on the laptop between you two and you noticeably stiffen.
“Sorry!” he exclaims, slightly flustered. You watch as a blush rises high in his cheeks, the wash of colour bringing out the scatter of freckles across the bridge of his nose.
He stills as he notices the way you eye his expression, only moving to lick his bottom lip out of nervous habit.
Something draws you in, something like gravity; inescapable and all-encompassing.
Without thinking, you lean in until you’re close enough to feel his breath fan across your face. His eyes widen in surprise, lips parted as if to object but he says nothing. Your gaze catches on a freckle near his left tear duct and then another just below a long bottom lash.
You can’t help but count the stars before you, marvelling at their multitude. They’d always been there, but you had never thought to just look up and take them in. Until now.
A deep wanting resounds within you; a desperate, selfish desire to carve your own place among the cosmos. With your heart between your teeth, you close your eyes and lean forward. Gently, a hand cups your jaw, tilting it upward towards the heavens and you gasp as the universe shifts into focus.
He kisses you, close-mouthed and careful, but it ignites a supernova in your chest all the same. Without hesitation, you kiss him back, your fingers winding their way into his long, dark hair as he pulls you close to him.
His laptop is cast aside, its speakers still announcing the names of Jupiter’s moons as you shift to straddle his lap.
You break apart for a second and when you open your eyes, you come to a startling realization.
You’d learned, not so recently, that the closest star to the sun is approximately 4.24 lightyears away. But with Yamaguchi’s hands on your waist and teeth at your throat, you think you have evidence to believe otherwise.