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It started the first year of high school. Tsukishima was apathetic and snarky, a general pain in the ass, and he liked to pretend he didn’t have feelings— but every volleyball practice, the little knot of feelings in his chest grew a little bit larger. At first, he thought he’d over-caffeinated. Eventually, the tightness was too much to chalk up to caffeine, and, of course, there was the unavoidable fact that every time Tsukishima caught a glimpse of Hinata’s brilliant smile, that tight feeling got worse. By the end of first year, Tsukishima could no longer deny that he was in love with Hinata Shouyou.
Second year, Tsukishima found Hinata’s devotion to volleyball infectious. He found himself staying late after practice, running plays in his head, thinking about volleyball in all his spare time. Thinking about his technique, and blocking spikes, and spiking, and the way Hinata launched himself into the air like a bird for his spikes, and the way Hinata hit the ball with fearsome determination, and the way Hinata glowed when he nailed a spike— most of Tsukishima’s volleyball related thoughts featured Hinata. He dedicated himself to the game, dedicated himself to the tournaments, and dedicated himself to shoving aside his feelings for Hinata.
Third year, Hinata got a girlfriend. Tsukishima didn’t know her name. Didn’t want to. Tsukishima watched Hinata flourish as the team’s ace, and his heart ached. Hinata was so happy, so happy on the team but even happier with her . Like Tsukishima and the rest were second rate, like Tsukishima wasn’t enough. Tsukishima always chided himself for having those thoughts. Hinata saw him as a friend, and that was certainly better than first year. Hinata had never seen him as anything more than a friend, and as a friend, Tsukishima was enough. And being enough for Hinata in any manner had to be enough for Tsukishima.
They graduated. Tsukishima had watched Hinata work his way through at least five girlfriends, all while juggling his responsibilities and ultimately pursuing a career in professional volleyball. He knew he and Hinata were going down different paths— Tsukishima to university, and Hinata off to a beach in Brazil, where he was probably getting tan and muscular. No matter how many times Tsukishima tried to tell himself he didn’t care, he still cared. It ached, like the way his head ached when the lights were too bright or the way his body ached after a particularly tough practice. School without Hinata sounded dull, and Tsukishima discovered that it was duller than he’d even expected. He joylessly worked towards his science degree, and sometimes he’d flick on the TV just to see that head of fiery hair and that killer quick one more time.
Two years into his degree, in late autumn, Tsukishima laid in bed. Despite knowing it was bad for him, he kept updated with Hinata’s career. Tsukishima had never been a crier; he was more prone to simply staring blankly at the ceiling, letting the feelings soak into every inch of his body. Everything hurt. He’d tried to move on; a guy from his chemistry class had asked him out, and it had taken the guy exactly one date to realize that Tsukishima’s heart wasn’t in it. The really sad thing was that Tsukishima had been trying to be present, to keep his attention on his date and not on the image of Hinata Shouyou burned into the back of his eyelids. All of this floated around Tsukishima’s head as he laid on the mattress, wondering if he could just melt into a puddle and cease to exist. University was supposed to be fun. All Tsukishima had gotten was stress and sleep deprivation from classes, plus a dull, aching loneliness that he could never quite kick. Even if he was getting better about pushing it down during the day, it all came flooding back at night.
Tsukishima was happy when he graduated university. He was happy when his research got published, and he was happy when he was accepted to a doctoral program. Really, he was. Research was fulfilling; knowing that he was impacting the world filled Tsukishima with pride. In the lab, he was happy. He smiled, beneath his layers of protective equipment. His chest was filled with a good feeling, the polar opposite of the ache that plagued him for so long— the ache that still came back, once in a blue moon. If Tsukishima caught a glimpse of a pro volleyball game on a TV in the window of a store, if he scanned the tabloid covers at the grocery store and happened to see those amber eyes and that wild, fiery hair, sometimes the ache came back. Tsukishima dated around, had one boyfriend and another while he worked through graduate school. His relationships never lasted long— because he was so busy, of course. Tsukishima was overwhelmingly busy with classes and research and papers and teaching introductory chemistry to freshmen, and his various boyfriends were never the priority. Each one caught on to Tsukishima’s distance, to his workaholic tendencies, and the smarter ones saw Tsukishima throwing himself into work as a coping mechanism. The smartest ones realized they wouldn’t be able to break those walls down, not when those walls were designed to hide and repel romantic feelings. It wasn’t about Hinata anymore; his high school crush may have been the reason Tsukishima shut himself inside his own head, but even without Hinata in his life anymore, the damage was already done.
When Tsukishima received his PhD, his doctoral thesis made front pages internationally. His work in microbiology was groundbreaking, invaluable to a world filled with dense populations and rampant disease. Old friends got back in touch, congratulating Tsukishima on his success. Tsukishima’s new post-grad research position was luxurious— or at least, as luxurious as a research position could be. He got a nicer apartment and a cat, and potted plants to go in the window, and he had colleagues that invited him drinking, and he smiled every day. Only on occasion did Tsukishima hurt on the inside, thoroughly drenched with a loneliness that even his cat couldn’t fully deter. His coworkers would pry into his private life, and Tsukishima would laugh them off and change the subject. Everyone was dying to know if someone had captured the heart of the brilliant, stoic, sarcastic Tsukishima Kei. Tsukishima didn’t have the heart to tell them that he was pretty sure he’d lost the ability to love.
There was a reunion, at some point. Tsukishima went because Yamaguchi begged him to, kept leaving him voicemails with vague threats on his life in that not-at-all-threatening Yamaguchi tone. Honestly, Tsukishima was happy to see his old teammates. Happy to catch up. He congratulated Daichi and Sugawara on their engagement, listened to Yachi ramble about the university she taught at. He chatted with Yamaguchi about research, and did everything in his power not to interact with Hinata. It was easy for the first half of the night, as Hinata was deeply engrossed in a conversation with Kageyama. From overheard snippets, Tsukishima deduced they were talking about volleyball. Some things never changed. However, Kageyama had to leave early, for some reason. Hinata ended up sitting next to Tsukishima, staring up at him with that alcohol flush on his cheeks. That familiar feeling rose up in Tsukishima’s chest, tainted with years’ worth of pain. Damn , he thought, all these years and I’m still in love with this idiot? Except Hinata wasn’t really an idiot, not anymore. He’d grown up. He was still short, bubbly, talkative as all fuck, but his frame was filled out, his shoulders broad and confident, his face more mature, his voice deeper. He was a little more demure than he used to be, though not much. Tsukishima could feel himself falling again, falling even deeper. He left early and went to bed early, too.
After the reunion, someone must have given Hinata Tsukishima’s number. Tsukishima got a text at some unholy hour of night (because some things really never changed), asking Tsukishima if he was alright and if Hinata had scared him off and if they could go catch up sometime because Hinata felt like he’d done something wrong even if he didn’t know what and he wanted to make it up and— Tsukishima couldn’t help but smile at Hinata’s inability to use punctuation in his messages. He found himself agreeing to go catch up, promising that Hinata had done nothing wrong and that he’d left just because he was tired and had work the next day. Tsukishima threw himself into his work, trying to stifle those feelings he knew would resurface now that he was scheduled to meet with Hinata. His coworkers asked if he was okay, and his tight smile told them he wasn’t, and that they shouldn’t press the issue.
In the daylight, Hinata looked even more grown. Tsukishima couldn’t help but admire the way the rays of sun illuminated the planes of Hinata’s muscles, the sharpness to Hinata’s jaw that didn’t used to be there. They got coffee, and Tsukishima stared at Hinata’s forearms on the table. Pro volleyball had done incredible things for Hinata’s build. They chatted about their careers, about colleagues and games and the time back in college that Tsukishima spilled sulfuric acid all over the floor, and Tsukishima found himself sharing even more embarrassing stories when he heard Hinata’s laugh— deeper, more relaxed, but just as mellifluous as it used to be. Maybe even more so. Before they left, Hinata invited Tsukishima out again for the next week. It’s been nice catching up with you, Tsukki , he’d said. No one had called him Tsukki in years.
Hinata’s texting habits hadn’t changed a single bit since high school. Even though the two met weekly, Hinata still sent texts all throughout the day, in groups of three and four, and even more at night. Tsukishima did his best to reply to every one. His coworkers definitely noticed, and they definitely noticed how Tsukishima glowed when he looked down at his phone. They noticed when he started leaving the lab on time instead of staying late, and they noticed when he started taking days off instead of working extra days. Tsukishima took as much time as he could without it impacting his work, because Hinata was always so anxious to meet again, and Tsukishima had never been able to say no to him. Never wanted to. Coffee turned into bowling and movies and arcades and fast food, all the juvenile things Tsukishima had always wanted to do with Hinata. Tsukishima discovered that Hinata’s athleticism did not make his bowling skills any less horrendous, and that he really liked cheesy romance movies and got scared during the action sequences of other movies. He let Hinata learn about him, too. When Hinata showed up at the door of his apartment with wide eyes and a bag of gummy bears, Tsukishima didn’t think twice about letting him in for a movie night.
As the next volleyball season started up and Tsukishima’s work schedule had to tighten, the pair’s usual hangouts started taking place at their apartments— usually Tsukishima’s, because Hinata adored Tsukishima’s cat. It became commonplace for Hinata to pass out with his head in Tsukishima’s lap on the couch, exhausted from practice. It became commonplace for Tsukishima to smile down at his sleeping friend and gently stroke his hair, before eventually dozing off himself. Eventually, Hinata spent so much time at Tsukishima’s place that Tsukishima jokingly said he should just move in. The next day, Hinata showed up at Tsukishima’s apartment with a few bags ( I swear, Tsukki, I don’t have much stuff. This is all I want to bring with me ), and Tsukishima pretended he hadn’t been joking. He learned that Hinata woke up at ass o’clock in the morning every day, and that he made killer pancakes but couldn’t cook much else, and that he never cleaned anything unless Tsukishima explicitly asked. And he let Hinata see him vulnerable, see him in the middle of the night revising a paper or crunching numbers from a study with dark circles under his eyes, let Hinata in on all his idiosyncrasies. He let Hinata see how certain things had to be in certain places for him to focus on work, how the books on the shelves had to be organized by theme down to the most minute differences, how he couldn’t focus for shit unless he played the same song on repeat while he worked. And Hinata fit right in. Tsukishima hadn’t realized how much he wished he had someone to rub his shoulders while he worked until Hinata had seen him tense over a report, and taken a moment to rub out the knots in his shoulders. Tsukishima would never admit it, but he had nearly cried just from the bliss of having someone care for him like that. He actually did shed a tear when Hinata pressed a kiss to the top of his head before walking to the kitchen.
They shared a bed. At first, Hinata had taken the couch or the guest futon, but when he officially moved in, he told Tsukishima another bed wouldn’t fit in the apartment, and that was that. Tsukishima had thought sharing a bed with Hinata might be awkward, but it ended up being the most natural thing in the world. Tsukishima frequently woke up with Hinata tucked into his arms, and if he had nowhere to be, he’d lay in bed and pretend to be asleep until Hinata woke up. As he learned Hinata’s sleep habits, he realized Hinata was actually pretending to be asleep until Tsukishima woke up. One day, Tsukishima opened the front door to leave for work, and Hinata hugged him from behind and pressed a kiss to the back of his neck like it was nothing before giving him the usual “ Have fun at work, Tsukki! I’ll order takeout tonight, ” that had become so routine for them. Tsukishima thought about it over his whole commute and during work, too. There had been so many things like this before; there was no particular reason that this one got Tsukishima thinking. Hinata kissed him a lot— did that mean something? He couldn’t stop thinking about it. Tsukishima finally explained himself to his coworker when he dropped a beaker full of a caustic solution and it shattered on the floor. As soon as the disaster was taken care of, Tsukishima’s friend demanded an explanation of his uncharacteristic behavior, and Tsukishima begrudgingly told him about the events of the morning and the rest of the Hinata situation. His coworker just laughed. Tsukishima , he’d said between giggles, are you sure you aren’t already dating this man? Tsukishima shook his head, and his coworker kept laughing. You two live together, sleep in the same bed, have been going on dates for years, and take care of each other just like an old married couple , his coworker had continued. You should ask him about it, because he probably thinks you’re dating .
Tsukishima asked later that night, in between episodes of some shitty drama that Hinata loved. Hinata had just laughed, squeezing Tsukishima’s hand. You’re the one that asked me to move in, Tsukki , he said. Tsukishima just smiled. That was true. Well , Hinata had continued with a bright smile, for any of those who may be confused, present company included, we are totally dating, I am totally in love with you, and I wanna spend every second of my life with you . Tsukishima’s heart sped up just a little bit. Is that a proposal, Shouyou? He dared to ask. Hinata just laughed again. Yeah, yeah, it is; now hush— the next episode is starting!
They got rings, eventually, but Tsukishima never cared about that part. Nothing really changed when his relationship with Hinata became official, except that he became a bit freer with his affection. At night, Tsukishima had no trouble falling asleep; Hinata’s even breathing always put him right to sleep; Hinata’s warmth and Hinata’s presence that made him feel so safe always kept his dreams sweet. Tsukishima never even noticed that the aching loneliness in his chest was gone. He never noticed that the walls he built up around his heart for so many years had been broken right back down.