Chapter Text
Tsukishima Kei is 19 years old and he was born on September 27th. His height is 193.2 cm, he has one brother named Akiteru and a mother named Sana, but no father. He likes strawberry shortcake and dinosaurs, and his favorite color is green.
He’s only a secondary character in Haikyuu!! , a popular shounen manga series, but Tadashi still loves him all the same. Tsukishima is his favorite character, and also the protagonist of his favorite arc in the whole series (the Attack on Kokusai arc). Tadashi had never paid much attention to the blond before then, but the moment the arc came and the character was forced to come to terms with the fact that his talent could only get him so far in life, he’d been immediately enchanted. The storyline gave the reader a more nuanced perspective into the dynamics of his character, and ever since then Tadashi has fallen completely in love.
It’s not that they’re particularly alike. Tadashi has tended to fall in love with characters that are similar to him, in the past, because they’re easy to identify with and even easier to understand. But with Tsukishima, it’s obviously something else that draws him to the blond: his snark, his talent, his confidence… Tsukishima is someone who inspires him to become better, even though he’s just a character on a page.
As a Tohoku University student studying Computer Science, there’s not much going on in his life worth even mentioning. He loves his friends, and he loves the good times they have together, and he loves his family, but it’s nice to be able to just… lose himself in an alternate world sometimes. A world where children are constantly putting their lives in danger and where death and destruction is more common than in real life, yes, but a more interesting world nonetheless. It’s nice to read about such things as fiction, he thinks.
Yachi disagrees with him, and her girlfriend Shimizu-senpai is neutral on the matter, and whenever they can, they end up fighting about it.
“You can’t really think that living in the Haikyuu world is better than here, Tadashi!” The blonde says, scandalized, as the three of them eat lunch together. “I mean, people die there all the time , and they’re in constant threat from the Hunters and the other Schools and the Virus… it must be terrible! Not to mention — we’d probably just be one of those minor characters that exist only to further the plot and give the MC some character motivation.”
Tadashi shrugs, munching on his lunch. “I’m not saying it’d be better, but it’d definitely be more interesting . I don’t think I’d survive long in the Haikyuu world, and you’re right that we’d just get killed off in the first arc, but I still think that, out of all the manga out there, I’d rather live in Haikyuu than in some more violent ones. Right, Shimizu-senpai?”
“I’m not such a fan of manga,” the older girl answers, and Yachi pouts at her. “But I feel obligated to agree with my girlfriend. Sorry, Yamaguchi-kun.”
In turn for her compliance, Shimizu-senpai receives a kiss on the cheek, and Tadashi makes a face at them. They never make him feel like a third wheel whenever they hang out, but it’s still funny to make fun of them for it.
Yachi is one of his closest friends, and he likes that Shimizu-senpai is really good for her. He truly loves them both, seeing how happy they make each other.
“Anyways,” the blonde says, smiling cheekily, “I don’t see why you would choose Haikyuu when there are so many cool manga out there like Ouran ! Or Ao Haru Ride , or—”
“Those are all shoujo,” Tadashi says. “I like shoujo, but they’re just normal — they take place in our world. There’s nothing new or interesting about it unless you’re the main character, and, knowing me, I’d probably be the gay best friend who’s not even explicitly gay, just, like, implied, and I wouldn’t have any love interest.”
Yachi pouts. “That’s so sad, Tadashi! I think Haikyuu is making you a pessimist.”
They laugh, and soon enough Shimizu-senpai and Yachi have to leave for their respective classes. Tadashi still has two hours until his next class, so he decides to head to the main library to see if he can get a nap in before he goes.
His usual schedule for Tuesdays go like this: he goes to his two morning classes, meets Yachi and Shimizu-senpai for lunch, heads to the library and takes a one-hour nap, wakes himself up with an online alarm clock, does some work, then goes to his last class of the day. It’s a comfortable routine, albeit a bit monotonous.
Now shouldn’t be any different. It’s a regular Tuesday, and midterm season has just started so the only thing that should be worth noting is that there are more people in the library.
However, the minute he steps into the library, everything just… changes .
Instead of the jet of hot air that usually hits his face, instead of the warm smell of heat and old books, and instead of the sound of students chatting quietly inside, he finds himself on the outside. A cool breeze passes by his face and messes up his hair, and it gives him quite a startle because it wasn’t nearly this cold before. He hadn’t seen anything shift, and his mind is working too slowly to fully process what just happened.
What then catches his attention is the fact that the library is nowhere to be seen at all. Tadashi looks around him and realizes he doesn’t recognize where he is at all: it looks like a more rural town than Sendai, for sure, but it also looks quite… old. There’s no pavement on the ground and the buildings are old-fashioned, as if he were living before the Meiji era. It looks almost suspiciously like—
“You!”
Tadashi startles at the voice. He’d thought he’d been alone, but apparently not.
When he turns around, he freezes. The person headed towards him is wearing gear that looks exactly like the anti-contaminant full-body suit that the characters in Haikyuu wear.
“Oh,” Tadashi says, suddenly feeling self-conscious. “Is this a convention?”
He can’t see the person’s face underneath the suit, but he’s sure they’re staring at him blankly. They’re even holding the sharp spear that some of the characters in Haikyuu carry with them — although this one looks very realistic. Tadashi’s never cosplayed before, but he can appreciate the effort that it takes for one to come up with everything by themselves.
“Where’s your license?” The person asks, voice deep and husky and somewhat youthful. “And what the hell are you wearing? Show me your docs.”
Tadashi frowns. He understands the jargon — he wouldn’t be able to call himself a Haikyuu fan if he didn’t —, but he doesn’t understand what’s going on. This cosplayer must be mistaking him for someone else — he doesn’t really know how LARP works, and personally he doesn’t know anyone who does. It’s not that popular in Japan anyways, and the only reason he knows about it is because of some American TV show his roommate had forced him to watch.
“Dude, sorry—” In one swift move, the person turns their spear towards him. “Woah — I’m not LARPing! I’m not a part of this, so please if you could just let me get back to—”
“Show me your docs now .”
“I-I don’t have any—”
Before he can continue, something hits him in the back of his head.
*
Tadashi groans as he wakes up.
“He’s up!” Someone shouts, and his ears ring.
He opens his eyes. “What—”
“Who are you?”
Tadashi blinks.
The person in front of him has a buzzcut and soft eyes and luscious lips and they’re very handsome but they’re also glaring at Tadashi and they look awfully familiar . He looks down and checks out the red shirt the person is wearing, then his eyes drift back upwards towards their face and he gasps. It can’t be.
“K-Kai?” He asks, and the person startles, clearly not expecting to be recognized. They turn to the other person in the room, and Tadashi recognizes her , too. Both of them might look different in real life as compared to the drawings, but he can still recognize the two members of the Nekoma School in Haikyuu . “Alisa?”
Kai Nobuyuki’s eyes harden and he immediately pulls at Tadashi’s arm — the one that’s not handcuffed to the bed. The pain surprises him, and he shouts.
“How do you know those names?” Kai asks. “Who are you? Answer me now or—”
“My name is Yamaguchi Tadashi!” He shouts, just wanting the other to stop. “Please don’t hurt me! I’m not your enemy — I’m just. Just a guy.”
The other narrows his eyes. “A guy .”
Alisa says something to Kai in Russian, and he answers her with a more aggressive stance. Tadashi doesn’t speak Russian, but he does recognize one word, due to years of re-reading and re-watching Haikyuu : ворона.
Crow .
“I’m not!” He shouts, and they turn to him, surprised and even more wary of him than they’d been previously. “I’m not a Crow, I swear — I’m…” He thinks fast: what would make Kai and Alisa stop wanting to kill him? “I knew Yaku-san.”
At the name of their former comrade, both Alisa and Kai flinch. The latter even loosens his hold on Tadashi’s arm, which makes him breathe a sigh of relief, but this only alerts Kai to his careless action. The younger ends up with his arm being twisted in an unnatural way.
He screams in pain. “Stop! Please, I—”
“Speak.”
“Could you…” He swallows around a really dry throat. “Could you let me go first? Please. I’m unarmed and you’re hurting me.”
This seems to make the other uncomfortable, but in the end he does end up letting go of Tadashi’s arm. At least, it seems, the characters are all acting as compassionate as he’d hoped.
If he really is somehow in the world of Haikyuu , then he’s both at a severe advantage and a severe disadvantage. With the information that he has on everyone and everything, he could most definitely earn everyone’s trust and climb his way to the top, and maybe even end the war that the Schools have been waging against each other for decades.
However, he’s also undocumented, and he sincerely doubts his average physical ability will help him survive past the Hunters, the other Schools, and the Virus. Nekoma School is one of the best in the manga, but a team is only good because of the individual sum of its members. If Tadashi is to survive here, he needs to learn how to at least wield a spear.
“I was Yaku-san’s informant,” he says, suddenly very glad that he’s been faithfully keeping up with the manga updates every week. “I knew he was in Nekoma, but it was never worth it for me to leave my position and come to you.”
Alisa hums. “Do you know where we found you?”
A trap , Tadashi thinks. She wants to get him to slip up.
“To be honest, no.” If being a fan of action movies has taught him anything, it’s that honesty is the best policy — unless absolutely necessary to lie. “My… colleagues . They found me out and left me for dead. I’m guessing we were in…” Fuck, think, Tadashi . “ … Chiba?”
“Close.” The woman stares at him, her big blue eyes incredibly intimidating. “Ibaraki. I’m guessing you know what happened to Yaku-san?”
“The Crows,” he says, without thinking. Then he realizes he shouldn’t know that. “Uh, I mean—”
Kai frowns. “You sound very sure about that.”
In an ideal world, he’d quickly get himself away from the Nekoma School folks and head to Karasuno. It is, after all, where the love of his life awaits him; Tsukishima Kei might not have been a realistic crush to pursue before, back when he was just a character on a piece of paper, but now that everything’s changed he might just have a chance of marrying the love of his life.
“Tell us what you know,” Alisa says, snapping him out of his fantasies. “Why did the Crows take Yaku-san?”
For the same reason you tortured Daichi , Tadashi thinks, but doesn’t say. They think you’re the enemy and don’t know how to forgive you after all the bad history between the two Schools. It’s all a misunderstanding, but it’s hard for each of you to even think about—
“We don’t have all day, Yamaguchi.” The woman sits down next to Kai on his bed. “Either you tell us or we leave you to die out there.”
Fuck. Tadashi really needs to learn to stop overthinking everything. Sure, he loves overanalyzing Haikyuu when it’s just a story on a piece of paper, but this is now his life for as long as he’ll have it. He needs to be smarter and think faster if he wants to survive.
“I only know that the Crows took Yaku-san,” he says. “I don’t know why they did it — but I can presume that it was because of the long-running feud between your two Schools.”
Kai frowns. “But why now ? They had all the opportunity to take one of our own when we were fighting Fukurodani, so why now that we’ve joined forces with the Owls and are stronger than ever? And why Yaku? He’s not our leader, and he’s not Kenma nor Lev, so why take him ?”
Why, indeed.
“Yaku might not be your leader, but he’s definitely the backbone of Nekoma,” Tadashi says. “Everyone relies on him to have their backs, since he’s good at everything but not great at anything, and he’s also one of the oldest Cats still alive. Kuroo, Yaku, and you took over Nekoma from your senpais and you did it together . By taking Yaku, Karasuno wanted to completely shatter Nekoma’s morale and make you more insecure.”
Both Alisa and Kai look shocked at his heartfelt response, and they turn to discuss something else in Russian. This time, Tadashi doesn’t recognize any of the words, but he can tell by their voices that they’re warming up to him. If he’s lucky, he might just get out of there alive.
After they’re done talking, Kai leaves the room they’re in, and Alisa stares at Tadashi for a few unsettling minutes. The boy tries to think about where he could possibly be located — the Cats operate on land, and ever since they teamed up with the Owls they’ve had control of both air and land. Tadashi could be anywhere, from one of Nekoma’s underground headquarters in Tokyo to one of Fukurodani’s barrage balloons roaming through Japan. He doubts the two Schools trust each other enough to let the other operate in their territory, but you can never know.
“So you’re undocumented,” Alisa says, “you don’t know much about the Crows, and you’re clearly inexperienced in battle.”
Tadashi grimaces. It’s one thing to know his own shortcomings, but it’s another to hear it coming from such a beautiful and capable woman.
“How did you survive this long?”
He tries for a smile. “My charm?”
Her eyes narrow. “Maybe…” She hums. “Or maybe you’re lying to us about who you are and what you know. Which one do you think is more likely?”
Tadashi’s smile freezes and he tries to think of something. In the manga, Haiba Alisa is an excitable and loyal woman who loves her friends and supports them no matter what. She’s cheerful and smiles a lot, but she can be deadly when protecting her friends.
“I’m—” He hesitates. “I won’t say that I’m not lying to you about some things, but I don’t want to hurt you. I can promise you that , at least.”
“I’ve heard that before.” She rolls her eyes. “They always say, ‘I won’t hurt you’, and then they betray us and say, ‘But I never said I’d help, either’. It’s the most classic con in the book, Yamaguchi-kun, you should know better.”
“Then I promise I will help you.” He meets her eyes and tries to convey his meaning with his face. “I swear, I only want to help you, and I want to end this war as peacefully as possible.”
She raises an eyebrow. “ Peace? You still believe in such a thing?”
“Of course!” He tries to sit up, but given his handcuffed hand and hurt head, he barely moves a few centimeters. “I believe that peace can be negotiated and that we will all come out of this stronger. I believe the Schools can all work together to defeat the Virus and the Hunters.”
Alisa sighs, tired, and he blushes. Maybe he’s said too much, and maybe he’s overly optimistic and overestimated the characters’ desire for peace… or, maybe, he misunderstood the characters on the page and ended up projecting his own desires and thoughts onto them. It wouldn’t be the first time it happened, but it still makes him feel embarrassed to feel so earnestly about a piece of fiction that doesn’t really matter.
The thought makes him impossibly sad — to think that, all along, he’s been loving characters that aren’t at all who he thought they were.
“I suppose you believe we can work with the Crows , too?” She asks, not quite glaring at him. “I suppose you have a plan to communicate with them and try to make things better.”
He opens his mouth, but then closes it. The character he’s playing — Yaku-san’s informant from the Lawless Lands — has no reason to like Karasuno, or to try to sympathize with them. His character is someone who’s been hurt time and time again by too many people, and who just wants to survive.
“Whatever,” Alisa says, after he takes too long to answer. “Kenma will be here soon enough, anyway. Then we’ll know who you really are, Yamaguchi .”
The thought of meeting Kozume Kenma and being interrogated by him is enough to make his heart sink. Everyone knows that the blond boy is impossible to lie to, and though he’s one of the more remorseful members of Nekoma, if he thinks you’re of any threat to his friends then he won’t hesitate to leave you to die.
I’m too young to die , Tadashi thinks.
Although he doubts Nekoma will kill him themselves, they also won’t hesitate to leave him for dead in any of the five Tohoku Lawless Lands. If left to fend for himself, Tadashi is under no impression that he’ll be able to last a day out there.
Before he can plead for his life, however, a loud noise is heard outside his room. Alisa is immediately up, reaching inside her shorts to take out her trusty knives. Speed is, after all, one of her strengths.
As soon as the door to the room opens, she has one blade on the person’s throat and another on the back of their spine.
The attacker isn’t with Nekoma, and that much is obvious from their attire to the way they struggle against Alisa’s hold. Each School in Haikyuu has their own representative color, which they use in order to identify potential allies and enemies: the Cats wear red, Owls wear black and white, Crows wear black and orange, Dolphins wear white and turquoise, Birds wear white and purple, and Foxes wear all black.
This person wears the characteristic colors of Karasuno, but they’re wearing a cover on their head so that their identity is hidden. Just judging by the person’s height and build, Tadashi thinks it might be either Daichi or Tanaka.
Alisa successfully lures the person away from the room and closes the door behind her. Tadashi tries to stand up but as soon as he tries, he realizes his damage is not only physical, but also psychological: the Cats must have given him something — some kind of drug or substance — to keep him just coherent enough to answer their questions and be aware of his surroundings, but weak enough to be unable to escape.
He’s really starting to rethink his taste in characters. Nekoma used to be his second favorite School following Karasuno, but they’ve definitely dropped a few places now.
He tries to get the handcuffs off him, but before he can make any progress the door to the room is opening again.
This time, there’s no mistaking who’s come for him.
“Tsukki—”
He immediately stops and berates himself. He can’t even blame the weird drugs Nekoma gave him, because controlling himself and his thoughts around Alisa and Kai hadn’t exactly been a struggle for him. Yet, somehow, it’s definitely a problem now .
Tsukishima Kei just has that effect on him.
In just one second, Tadashi comes up with about a thousand ways this can go. Tsukishima can kill him — it’d be the easiest and most sensible option, but the least likely one —, or he can knock him out and take him hostage just like Nekoma did. The blond can ignore him and take what he needs from this room, or he can ask him how he knows who he is.
Of all the options he can come up with, however, what he doesn’t see coming is the option where Tsukishima takes off his headcover and stares at Tadashi like he recognizes him.
Yet that’s exactly what happens.
“Yamaguchi?” The taller asks, and it sounds so familiar, because it’s exactly what Tadashi had imagined the blond would sound like, in his mind. His voice is different from his voice actor, but it’s alright because this one suits him way better. “Why are you here?”
Tadashi searches his memory for Tsukishima’s backstory, trying to explain how the other could possibly recognize him when he’s real and Tsukishima is very much not … but he comes up empty. Of all the things he knows about the blond character, he has no idea who his childhood friends were like, or what his childhood was like, or even what his backstory is like. All he knows about Tsukishima is so… superficial.
He wants to cry.
The blond approaches him, a frown on his very real face, and now that Tadashi’s seeing him as a person and not as a 2-D character he can appreciate the finer details of the other’s beauty: his height is certainly attractive, but the light flush in his cheeks from the head cover is even more so. His hair is longer now than it had been in the beginning of the series, but his glasses are the same as always.
“Tsukki.”
At his name, the other stops walking towards Tadashi.
“Do you—” Tsukishima stops himself. “ How are you here?”
The shorter frowns. “I— How am I supposed to answer that?”
Tsukishima doesn’t really listen to him, though. He takes a step forward and brings his gloved hands up to Tadashi’s face and runs his fingers along his cheeks and chin.
“I had to make sure,” the blond explains, almost as if in a trance. And then he shakes his head. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“I know,” Tadashi says, finally relieved that someone seems to understand him.
Tsukishima touches him again, but he’s not sure why.
Immediately, everything ends.
Tadashi stands in front of his campus library once again — but he’s not alone.
When he turns around, Tsukishima Kei is standing there alongside him, his light eyes wide with confusion and tension.
“Where am I?”