Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Kei’s first kiss is with Yamaguchi Tadashi. 

The walk home is dark save for the lamp posts that stretch their backs against the walls of the street. Kei is thirteen, and he watches his feet as they drag across the concrete, scraping his soles bare. He doesn’t know whether to cry or scream, so he does neither. 

“Tsukki?”

Kei keeps walking.

“Tsukki, we- we passed your house.” 

Oh. Kei stops. He can see the dim light of his front porch from the corner of his left eye. Behind the door, he hears muffled sobs. Akiteru must have gotten home before him from the volleyball match.

Kei kneels on his right knee on the sidewalk, then drops. His backpack slips off his shoulder and slumps next to his feet. He stares blankly at the creases branched out on his palm. 

A shadow hovers over him like an eclipse, and then Kei hears the scratching of gravel as Yamaguchi sits cross-legged in front of him. After a moment, Yamaguchi slides his fingers hesitantly over his. Kei can’t find the energy to pull away.

“I’m sorry about Akiteru-san. About the game.”

Kei doesn’t respond. A minute rolls by quietly.

“Tsukki, can I try something?”

Kei lifts his head slightly and looks up at his friend’s wavering eyes. The street behind him looks hazy. Akiteru’s cries hitch in the background, like a record player in a horror movie. He nods once, slowly.

“Okay. Here I go.” 

Yamaguchi’s fingers tighten around Kei’s, bending his knuckles. He leans forward and presses their lips together, gently, close-mouthed. After a few seconds he leans back and pulls his hands away, fidgeting with his thumbs in his lap.

“Mom does that with Dad when he’s having a bad day,” Yamaguchi explains. “So I thought I’d try, maybe.”

Kei nods again. He didn’t really feel it, to be honest. Everything seems a little blurrier than before. He blinks to clear his vision, and a tear dangles off the rim of his glasses, falls down to the pad of his thumb. 

Yamaguchi comes to his side and wraps his arms around Kei’s shoulders, cradles his head to lean against his chest, and they stay there till the lamp posts flicker off and leave them in the dark.

Kei’s second kiss is with a girl he doesn’t know. He’s in his third year of middle school, putting on a play with his class about some Western fairytale. He plays a prince (against his own will), and the girl plays the princess he’s in love with. Kei doesn’t remember her name.

All of their kisses during rehearsals have been on the cheek, but as the curtains fall and Kei awkwardly holds the princess in front of a full audience, she turns her head slightly and they kiss on the lips instead. It’s short and unexpected, but not really anything special; Kei doesn’t understand why the girl is so flustered when they pull away, shrieking a sorry before running off the stage. 

As they put the set and equipment away, Yamaguchi comes bounding over, his eyes bright with wonder. “How was it?”

“How was what?”

“You know, the kiss? With Ami-chan?”

“Oh.” Kei wraps the microphone cable carefully with his hands, looping over, under, over, under. “It was a kiss.”

“Yeah, no duh. So what was it like?”

“I don’t know. ”

“You didn’t feel anything?”

Over, under. “No, not really.”

“Oh.” Yamaguchi’s eyebrows sag a little, then smile widely again. “If you ever kiss a girl and you feel something, you have to tell me, okay? I need to know what it’s like and if they’re the perfect person for you!”

Kei smiles a little at that and puts the cable into its case. “Shut up, Yamaguchi.”

“Sorry, Tsukki! I’m gonna go get my bag and then we can walk home, okay?”

They walk home together, Yamaguchi skipping and Kei humming silently to the tune playing from the headphones around his neck. He forgets about the prince, the princess, and the kiss.

“So I think I’m bisexual.”

Kei turns to look at his best friend, whose legs swing back and forth off of the bench in front of Shimada Mart. It’s January of their first year of high school, and Yamaguchi has started working a night shift before his serving practices with Shimada-san. Yamaguchi holds a half-licked melon bar in his hand, holds his head up toward the sky. 

“Hm?”

“Bisexual. Like, attracted to multiple genders.”

“Oh.” Kei turns back and looks straight ahead. A stray black cat slinks by, weaving in and out of the tires of a parked car. “Cool.”

“You don’t think it’s weird?”

“No.”

Yamaguchi whistles and takes a bite from his melon bar. “Good. I’m glad.”

They watch as the cat makes its way toward a trash can that bleeds out napkins, apple cores, polymer remains of potato chip bags. It swipes at a blue milk carton and spills a white puddle onto the sidewalk.

“How do you know?”

“Hm?”

“That you’re attracted to multiple genders.”

“Oh. Well, I think I like Yachi-san right now,” Yamaguchi says, scratching the back of his head. Kei watches his cheeks tinge pink. “But I’ve liked other people before. Like Sugawara-san at the beginning of the year, and Ennoshita-san a little.” He pauses. “And Hinata too? Maybe?”

“ Hinata? ”

“Yeah, please don’t tell him.”

“Hinata.”

“Tsukki, he’s not that bad.”

“Sure.”

“You’re just childish.”

“We’re talking about Hinata and you’re calling me childish?”

Yamaguchi laughs at that and takes a final bite from the melted remains of his melon bar. He rests his elbow on his knee and plays with the wooden popsicle stick. “I’ve kind of known before high school, though. I used to think Furuya-sensei was the handsomest person in the world.”

“Our teacher? From middle school second year?”

“Yeah. And,” Yamaguchi’s eyelids shut tight, forming tiny wrinkles above his bed of freckles. “And I liked Akiteru-san a little in middle school.”

“No.”

“He’s really good-looking, and caring, and nice, and-”

“ Please stop talking.”

“What can I say? The Tsukishimas are just really attractive people.”

Kei wonders if the heat warming his cheeks is because he wore too many layers or because he’s slowly developing a fever. “Shut up. The next thing I know, you’re going to say that you find my dad attractive.”

“Ah, well, you see…”

Kei snatches the popsicle stick from Yamaguchi’s hand and thrusts it into the fallen trash can. The cat yowls and leaps into the milk puddle, and Yamaguchi laughs and laughs and laughs.

A month into their second year, Yamaguchi gets a girlfriend. 

Her name is Asato Ami. Kei recognizes her as the princess he kissed in the middle school play. She has black wavy hair down to her shoulders and wispy bangs like a fence around her forehead. Her eyes waver between rich brown and deep blue depending on how the sunlight angles through the windowpane. She has freckles on her cheeks, and on her ears, and on her chin. 

This is what Yamaguchi tells Hinata as they clean up the gym. Kei pulls down the volleyball net with Ennoshita-san and listens to their ecstatic voices from a few feet away.

“Have you guys been on a date yet?” Hinata asks excitedly, jumping up and down as he drags the mop in a circle in front of him.

“Just one. We got lunch on Saturday and talked for a long time. And then we went to a bookstore.” Yamaguchi leans on his mop and sighs contentedly. “It was nice, really nice.” 

Hinata tilts his head back and whines. “Come on, Yamaguchi, you’re making me jealous.” His head whips back down and he leans in closer, hunched. “Have you guys kissed yet?”

Kei drops his end of the volleyball net. “Sorry.” He picks it up and holds it flat as Ennoshita-san folds it towards him in a zigzag path.

He steals a glance at Yamaguchi, whose face is now the color of maraschino cherries. “Yeah. A few times.” He cradles the mop between his elbows and drops his head into his hands. “In the bookstore. We were looking at picture books together.”

Choruses of Yamaguchi! echo off the walls as Hinata nearly tackles him into a hug, leaving both of their mops to clatter to the floor. Kei watches Tanaka-san and Noya-san run up out of nowhere to blindly join the pile of sweaty teens, watches Kinoshita-san laugh and Kageyama hobble over to them with his jaw semi-clenched.

When Kei turns back, Ennoshita-san is staring at him.

“Yes?”

“Are you okay?”

“Um. Why wouldn’t I be?”

Kei watches his captain raise his eyebrows, scanning Kei’s face for any hidden thoughts before returning to a neutral expression. He takes the folded net from Kei’s grasp and shrugs.

“If you need anything, or anyone to talk to, just let me know, okay?”

And then he’s gone, walking away before Kei can give an answer.

“You didn’t tell me you guys kissed,” Kei remarks to Yamaguchi as they walk out of Karasuno and head toward Shimada Mart.

Yamaguchi rubs at the small tuft of hair behind his neck. “Ah, did you hear that?” He chuckles nervously. “I didn’t tell you because, you know, because you and Ami-chan…and I didn’t know if you’d wanna hear about that.”

“I told you already, it’s fine.” Yamaguchi had asked Kei for approval before asking Asato out because of the kiss in middle school. Kei had thought he was being ridiculous. “It was for a school play. I don’t even remember it.”

“Okay, okay. I just wanted to make sure.” 

He stops suddenly, then turns towards Kei and hugs him, arms around his neck, head buried in his shoulder. Kei stumbles a little from the unexpected force. He feels Yamaguchi’s laugh reverberate on the outskirts of his chest.

“Sorry, I just— Thank you.” 

“For what?”

“I don’t know. I just feel thankful.” Yamaguchi tightens his embrace. “You’re my best friend, you know that?”

Kei allows himself a small grin, and he pats the top of Yamaguchi’s head. “You’re being sappy.”

“Shut up.” Yamaguchi pulls his head away and looks up at Kei. It’s too dark to see anything, but Kei can still make out the glint of euphoria in Yamaguchi’s eyes. “I’m just really happy. With her, with you.”  

“I’m glad. You’re gonna be late for work.”

“Right! Sorry, sorry.” Yamaguchi unwraps himself from Kei’s lanky figure and skips on ahead, singing unintelligible words. Kei puts his hands in his pockets and follows behind. 

Asato becomes as much a part of Kei’s daily routine as she does Yamaguchi’s. She watches practice games from the second floor of the gym on Mondays, comes to their classroom during lunch on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Yamaguchi walks her home on Thursdays and Fridays, and she tags along when they study together on Saturdays. 

Kei doesn’t mind too much. Asato is pretty, kind, a lot more mature than Kei remembers her being. The younger version of her that flushed under Kei’s gaze seems to have shed its skin, abandoned in the cemetery of the previous years. She complements Yamaguchi, matching his sense of humor and graciously supporting his every endeavor. 

The nights are quieter on the days that Yamaguchi walks Asato home, his footsteps not there to liven the ambience outside of Kei’s headphones. But it’s a sacrifice Kei’s willing to make; Yamaguchi looks happy, and that’s what matters.

Sometimes Kei wonders whether he should mind, though, like right now, when Yamaguchi and Asato sit across from him with their hands obviously intertwined under the café table. The two of them huddle over an English textbook; Yamaguchi occasionally steals glances at the wisps of hair just above her eyes, at her mouth that sounds out syllables foreign to her tongue. Kei feels extremely out of place. He looks down and fiddles with the string of his chamomile tea bag, wrapping it idly around his index till his skin is ridged at the fingertip.

“Tsukki, Tsukki,” Yamaguchi whines, tugging on Kei’s sleeve with his free hand. When Kei looks up, he points at the textbook. “Do you know what this means? English is so hard . Even Ami-chan can’t figure it out.” 

Asato nods in response and accidentally swings her hair in Yamaguchi’s face, sending the two into a fit of giggles. Kei musters a smile and looks down at the page. Phrase No. 5: Let’s address the elephant in the room.

“Is there an elephant?” Asato asks between her laughs, cheeks reddening with each inhale. “What does that mean?”

“It means addressing an issue that everyone’s avoiding because it makes them uncomfortable. Our class went over it at the end today, Yamaguchi.”

Yamaguchi rubs at his right eye. “Aw, I must’ve missed it. So no elephant?”

“No elephant.”

Asato gulps down a glass of water and clears her throat. “What situation would you use it in?”

“Maybe if you were in a fight with someone but you were both avoiding discussing it.” Or maybe if you feel like you’re barging in on your best friend’s relationship by third-wheeling their study dates, Kei thinks. But am I the only one aware of this elephant?

“Mm, that makes sense. Thanks, Tsukishima-kun!” Asato looks up at him, her freckles scrunching into the shape of a grin. “I don’t know how you retain all of the information from your classes. I’m always dozing off in mine.”

“Tsukki’s really smart! He tutored our friends on the volleyball team last year when they were failing their exams.”

“Shut up, Yamaguchi.”

“Sorry! But it’s true,” he adds, whispering into Asato’s ear. Kei lifts his drink up to his mouth to cover the slight blush rising on his cheeks. He gathers parts of Yamaguchi’s next words — something about “need to pee” and “be right back.”

When he lowers his cup, Asato sits alone in front of him. She pokes at her half-eaten cake with a fork, biting her bottom lip as her eyes scan the textbook pages again. The café speakers hum out a jazz tune from above, but the silence is still palpable, stretching out lethargically between them on the table.

Kei nods toward the cake. “I like that one from this café. It’s my favorite.”

Asato looks up, her eyes perked. “Yes! Strawberry shortcake is superior. Do you want some of mine?”

“N-No, it’s okay. I can buy my own later.”

This is awkward, Kei thinks as Asato says something about being okay with sharing. Should I just ask her about the elephant in the room while Yamaguchi is gone? Or would that make it even more awkward? He wishes it was socially acceptable to put on headphones in front of someone mid-conversation, to drown out the unease that tickles his ears. 

“Tsukishima-kun?”

Shit . “Sorry, what did you say?”

“I said, you’re Tadashi-kun’s best friend, right?”

Yamaguchi’s given name startles him. He nods. “I think so.”

“What do you like about him?”

That isn’t what Kei was expecting, although he doesn’t really know what else he was expecting her to say. What does he like about Yamaguchi? A lot of things, probably, but it’s not like he’s thought much about it, written down all of his best qualities in a comprehensive list.

“Um, he’s really nice to everyone, he’s determined, he can be funny sometimes…” Do I keep going? Her eyes seem to nod at Kei’s inner thoughts, so he does. “He tries his best at everything he does and pushes me to do the same? He… He makes me a better person, I guess.” 

His throat feels hollowed out, made vulnerable to the sharp edges of the words that he’ll later speak. Asato’s chin rests on her intertwined fingers, elbows propped up and slightly crumpling the textbook pages. Her eyes are kind, her lips even kinder as they curl upwards into a genuine smile.

“Me too, for all of those things. I’m glad he has you.”

Sincerity encases every syllable she speaks, and as his mind processes the words, Kei feels his heart skip. What was that?

“I-I’m glad he has you, too.”

Yamaguchi comes back a few seconds later, and Asato’s gaze on him breaks. Kei exhales involuntarily, reaching for his cup as he watches their hands entangle again, like the other’s palm is their natural habitat, a home. He twists the tea bag string around his finger, this time to the rhythm of his erratically-beating heart, till the paper tag rips off of the thread.

Kei doesn’t join their weekend study sessions after that. A few weeks pass, and he starts to skip their Tuesday and Wednesday lunch sessions, too. Excuses recycle themselves on his tongue, the same material in different words — he has a career plan meeting, or classroom duties, or his mom is calling him for some reason, be right back. 

Yamaguchi has Asato, so it’s okay if he’s not there. At least that’s what he tells himself to feel less guilty about leaving, slipping out of the classroom as soon as the lunch bell rings.

He knows that he shouldn’t be avoiding them, and it’s not like he completely can , either — spending time with Yamaguchi is a part of his everyday routine, and consequently, so is spending time with Asato. But ever since their study session at the café, an uncomfortable ache has been weighing down on his chest. It’s impossible to pinpoint what it is, but Kei knows that seeing the two of them is a catalyst, the ache festering under their gaze. The escape during lunch is freeing even if it’s only temporary; he needs time to let the ache wither away, before it blossoms so fully that it devours him whole.

Today, though, Kei needs to study, so he sucks it up and stays in his chair. Asato balances herself on the edge of Yamaguchi’s desk, popping a piece of fried tofu into her mouth; Yamaguchi holds her hand and taps on her knuckles absently as he eats his own lunch. Kei squints at the math equation the teacher has left on the board: integrate the given fraction .

“Oh shit ,” Yamaguchi starts suddenly, standing up and sending his chair back with a screech. “I forgot I was meeting Takeda-sensei to ask about the book we’re reading in class.” He swoops up his uniform jacket from around his chair and leans in to kiss Asato on the cheek, whispering a soft sorry before rushing out of the room. Kei looks over his left shoulder at the exit; beside him, Asato laughs, her bangs waving like curtains on a windy evening. 

“He’s so forgetful.”

“Mm. He was probably half-asleep when he scheduled that meeting with Takeda-sensei.” Kei taps his pencil against his paper. Integration by parts… 

They lapse into silence. In his periphery, Asato slides into Yamaguchi’s empty seat, looks blankly at the front of the classroom. Kei wonders whether this would be a good time to ask her whether he’s disturbing their relationship, if he should stop spending time with them altogether for their sake. The ache taps on the walls of his heart.

Before he can decide, though, he hears her say, “Can I ask you something?”

“Mm.”

“Do you…” she stops, sighs, then starts again. “Am I intruding on your friendship with Tadashi-kun?”

He blinks. What. “I- Aren’t I the one intruding on your relationship with Yamaguchi?”

“What?! No, not at all! It’s nice spending time with you. But I just...Do you like...” She trails off, the words she doesn’t say grabbling at Kei’s throat like a phantom hand.

The ache gnaws at his ribcage now, as if trying to escape its cellar. Kei looks back down at his paper. “Didn’t Yamaguchi ask you out?”

“Well, yeah, but I don’t- I don’t want you to feel like I’m taking him from you.”

He writes his final answer, the lead of his pencil scratching against the clean white paper. “If he asked you out, that means he likes you. That has nothing to do with me.”

Suddenly her hand is over his. The pencil skids to an anticlimactic halt. He looks up at Asato’s eyes, which under the artificial light of their classroom seem almost too bright to be real, like a mirage in a desert. Her freckles glow, burning his skin with their unprecedented captivation. 

Kei’s heart skips. He can’t move.

Asato tightens her grip on his knuckles for emphasis. “Are you sure it’s okay?”

The bell rings above their heads. Lunchbox zippers cut through the air along with the rustling of closing notebooks. Asato gingerly pulls her hand away but keeps her eyes on Kei. He taps his foot lightly against the metal leg of his desk.

“I like you, if that’s what you were going to ask me earlier,” he manages to say. He watches Asato waver. “And more importantly, Yamaguchi likes you. So don’t worry about me.”

At that, Asato’s face relaxes into a subtle smile. She nods, stands up, and tucks her lunchbox into her bag before slinging it over her shoulder. She waves goodbye and walks away; Kei watches the doorway long after she’s left through the exit.

Sometimes Kei has weird dreams.

He has dreams of sitting cross-legged on a volleyball court, saying thank you for the food to a lone plate of strawberry shortcake and floppy fries lying directly below the net. He has dreams of dinosaurs devouring asteroids, throwing them at the sun to melt, burn, dissipate into ash. He has dreams of cradling stars while curled up in the craters of the moon. 

He has dreams of watching Yamaguchi and Asato inside a bookstore: how their hands link effortlessly, how their laughs mingle with the laundered scent of the air. Kei watches dream-Yamaguchi run his free hand through dream-Asato’s thick hair like ripples in a river, watches him lean towards her forehead and press his lips to her soft complexion. Kei watches as he tilts his head to nip at the freckles dotting her ear, holding his I love you’s gently against her helix. Have they said I love you yet? Kei watches them mold together, fold into each other like a forest swallowed up by the earth, till their spines are bound and their hearts bleed like the inky words in the pages strewn on the floor.

Kei wakes up from these dreams breathless, clenching the pit in his stomach as he wills away his guilt.

Yamaguchi invites Kei, Hinata, and Kageyama to his house on a Friday night when his parents are out of town. Kei would much rather spend the night alone, or just with Yamaguchi, since they haven’t done that in a while, just the two of them — but hanging out with the other two isn’t half as bad as it used to be, and he knows Yamaguchi appreciates the social interaction. It’s endearing how excited he is about spending time with them, skipping ahead of Kei and the bickering freak duo in the dully lit street. 

The source of his excitement becomes apparent when they step through the entryway and Yamaguchi takes them to his kitchen, opens the fridge, and reveals a door full of beers. 

“I bought Yakult and Calpico for us, too,” he says, his eyes sparkling. “Because beer tastes like shit.”

An hour later their cans lay crushed on Yamaguchi’s living room ottoman. The coconut mall theme song plays quietly from the television, creating dissonance with the quarter-tone wails coming from Hinata as his Yoshi falls off the path. 

“Stay on the road ,” he groans, fumbling with his remote. “We’re in fourth place and Kageyama’s in first! ” The Kageyama in question, who sits on Hinata’s left on the floor, sports an evil smile as his Donkey Kong zooms past the finish line. 

Beside Kei, Yamaguchi laughs and leans back into the couch, cheeks flushed red. “If only I had two more remotes. Then we could all play together and I could kick everyone’s asses at once.”

“I think you mean I would kick everyone’s asses.”

Yamaguchi huffs. “Sure, Tsukki. You’d be 12th place and win by getting Bullet Bill in the last round.”

“That still counts as winning.” 

Hinata groans and Kageyama whoops, taking a celebratory sip from his second Calpico bottle. Without turning around, he passes his remote to Kei. Kei takes it, quickly switching to Toad, and waits for Hinata to finish choosing his vehicle.

Yamaguchi wordlessly rests his head on Kei’s left shoulder, not quite hovering but not fully leaning in either. His expression has deflated from his giddy high, changed to one of contemplation. Kei tries to remember whether his best friend was like this the few times they drank alone, in the confines of his bedroom back at home. No; Yamaguchi was light, joking, constantly stifling a laugh. Tonight he was all of these things for a millisecond, but now he succumbs to silence, as if his excitement from the day had merely been a facade.

He’s been quiet for the past few days, really. Not quiet like the calm before the storm, or like the liminal period of spring before the summer cicadas. Quiet like the formation of eraser shavings during an afternoon exam, like the stillness of the Karasuno club room when Kei wraps his fingers in the dark. Tension with no intention of release. 

Kei quells his urge to tug at Yamaguchi’s taut strings. He won’t pry; Yamaguchi will come to him when he’s ready. For now, Kei lets him lean on him, use him as an anchor while lost at sea. 

For now, he moves his arms minimally to swerve in front of Hinata, eliciting a strangled groan from the mop of orange hair on the floor. Kei smirks. 

“Tsukishima you asshole!” Hinata whips his head around and waves his remote in the air, making his Yoshi go haywire. “I thought you were bad at this game!”

“Who said I was?”

“Yamaguchi!” Kei looks down to his left, where Yamaguchi, eyes half-closed, shakes his head.

Kageyama lets out a disgruntled sigh. “You’re so bad at this. Here.” He scoots slightly behind Hinata, snakes his right arm around Hinata’s shoulder and rests his hands on top of the smaller boy’s on the controller. Hinata stops waving his arms, goes silent.

“You have to do it like this,” Kageyama says nonchalantly, moving their thumbs leftward on the right stick. 

“Oh. Okay.”

The Yoshi on the screen accelerates and passes Kei’s Toad.

“Son of a bitch.”

Kageyama links his chin onto Hinata’s left shoulder and lifts his middle finger up at Kei before returning his hand to the controller. Yamaguchi lets out a small laugh against Kei’s chest.

After another round of switching remotes the rotation is back to Hinata and Kageyama, who stay in the same position, Hinata visibly more relaxed in Kageyama’s arms as he screams at the television. Yamaguchi looks half-asleep, but Kei can tell he’s awake; he watches as his best friend’s thumbs fiddle together against his curled-up knees on the couch.

“You okay?” Kei whispers, unable to shy away his concern. 

Yamaguchi nods against his shoulder in response. “I thought drinking would help a little with my mood, but I guess not.” A few seconds pass, and then, “I feel like we haven’t talked that much lately.”

Guilt stabs at his chest. Kei exhales softly. “I see you every day.”

“Yeah, I know, but still. It feels different.”

“Yeah. I know what you mean.”

“I miss you.”

“I’m literally right here.”

Yamaguchi snorts and shifts his head closer to Kei’s neck. “Thanks for the reminder.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Mm.”

The little cloud and turtle float across the screen to signal the start of the second lap for Kageyama; Hinata swears and wiggles in the taller boy’s grasp. Kei feels Yamaguchi’s right hand play with the ends of his hair next to his ear, then move down to the strands at the nape of his neck. He leans into the touch. Yamaguchi’s forehead tickles Kei’s jawline. 

Maybe everything is okay. Maybe they can exist in this space together, with Mario Kart in their ears and semi-carbonated beer in their throats. Maybe this is how it’s always been, how it always can be, Yamaguchi being Kei’s anchor as much as Kei is his. 

But then Yamaguchi’s fingers tug on his hair tightly, desperately, and Kei remembers Asato’s curls, how Yamaguchi threaded his fingers through them in his dream. How her freckles glowed against her complexion, how Yamaguchi kissed her, how he enveloped her in arms and skin and love — and how Kei couldn’t, couldn’t look away.

“Fuck,” Yamaguchi swears, sitting up straight and bringing his arms to his sides.

Kei blinks. Could he tell what I was thinking? “What?”

“I think I drank too much. My head hurts a little.”

“But you only had two cans?”

“Maybe I’m more of a lightweight than I thought,” Yamaguchi laughs weakly, avoiding Kei’s gaze. Last time they drank together, Yamaguchi nearly finished a fifth can; Kei dismisses the lie. “I think I’m gonna go lie down. You know where the extra mattresses are, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. I- Sorry. Good night, Tsukki.” 

Tiny good night ’s are exchanged as Yamaguchi tiptoes around the two boys on the floor and walks hastily to the corridor. Kei looks down at his hands, his neck prickling from the lost contact. 

When the final lap finishes, with Kageyama coming in second and Hinata in seventh, the two of them turn around and look up.

“Is everything okay with Yamaguchi-kun?” Hinata asks.

“And you?” Kageyama adds belatedly.

Kei’s face burns red, and he knows it’s not from the alcohol.

Chapter Text

Kei’s third kiss happens in a dream.

He’s at school, in his classroom, under dormant artificial lights, and he’s floating. The classroom and its attributes stay rooted to the ground, the desks in straight lines and the chairs neatly tucked in. A bird chirps from somewhere outside the window, close but not too close. Nothing floats except him — and Asato. 

This is how fish live, Kei thinks fleetingly — the coral reefs and kelp and residence beneath them as they tumble along in their version of the ether. Asato swims toward him, black hair swooshing and swirling delicately in slow motion, as if underwater. Her freckles feel like coarse sand under his fingers.

She kisses his lips, close-mouthed, like during their middle school play. It feels wrong. Kei kisses back anyway.

“Tsukki?”

The classroom melts away, and Kei is on Yamaguchi’s living room couch. Yamaguchi holds Kei’s hand, holds Kei’s gaze with slowly watering eyes. He watches as Yamaguchi’s body slowly rises into the air while his own stays planted to his seat.

“Tsukki,” Yamaguchi’s voice is hoarse. “Tsukki?”

“No,” Kei responds immediately, for no real reason and for all of the reasons. Yamaguchi hasn’t asked a question but he still deserves an answer. He reaches out to grab Yamaguchi’s arm and just misses his wrist. “That’s not what I want. She’s not — I wouldn’t do that, I wouldn’t.”

The boy above him wipes at his eyes and sighs, a delicate sound of resignation rather than exasperation. “What is it that you want, then?” Kei watches as Tadashi’s expression crumbles, muscles too tired to hold its weight. “Kei.” Kei watches as Tadashi turns into a speck in the darkness, washed out by the sound of his name lingering in the air.

“I broke up with Ami-chan.”

When Kei whips his head around in his seat and stares, Yamaguchi just shrugs. “Or she broke up with me? I don’t know. It was pretty mutual.”

“Wha- When did you- When did it happen?”

“Last night, on our date.” He stabs lightly at his tonkatsu. “I really like her, but I don’t think I like her romantically anymore. And I think she felt the same, which, thank god, honestly, because I would’ve felt so bad if it was just me, you know?”

It would be much appreciated if Yamaguchi treated this like breaking news rather than an update on the weather. Kei spins his chopsticks around in his hand nervously. “Why didn’t you say anything this morning?”

“I don’t know. Didn’t wanna be a downer, I guess. Who wants to hear about break-ups first thing in the morning?” 

“Is that the only reason that you broke up with her?”

Yamaguchi faces him then. Between the wisps of hair, Yamaguchi’s eyes twitch, calculating. There’s something hidden behind them; Kei quells his urge to pry. “Were you expecting a different reason?”

Maybe. “I guess not.” He pauses. “Are you okay?”

Kei watches him chew thoughtfully, swallow, and then respond, “Yeah. Better than I thought I’d be, anyway. It’ll probably be awkward for a little, but we agreed to be friends! So that’s good.” He turns to Kei and smiles softly. “I feel a little relieved, to be honest.”

Unable to keep eye contact, Kei looks down at his own food and stabs his own tonkatsu. “If you say so.”

“Oh sorry, wrong response.” Yamaguchi dramatically flairs his right hand against his forehead and leans his weight fully onto Kei’s side. “Tsukki, I’m broken! I’ve been wounded and I don’t think I will ever recover.” He peers out from behind his hand. “Save me?”

“Shut up, Yamaguchi.” But Kei smiles despite himself, pushing Yamaguchi off lightly and proceeding to take a bite of his own tonkatsu. 

Yamaguchi laughs and hoists his elbows up on his desk, cushioning his chin atop his hands. “Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine. And I have you, anyway.” His face flickers for a second then, before returning to its regular warmth. “So I’ll be fine, right?”

The pit in Kei’s stomach drops further into his gut. Does Yamaguchi know about Kei’s feelings for Asato? Isn’t he angry? How is he able to ignore it and still stay by Kei’s side? The vision of Yamaguchi floating away from him flashes across Kei’s memory; he desperately tries to blink it away.

“You okay?” Next to him, Yamaguchi stares, mouth chewing mindlessly. “Something in your eye?”

“Yeah, just an eyelash.” He looks down to where his tonkatsu stares up at him, marinating in its viscous sauce. He spends the rest of lunch marinating in guilt. 

The summer foliage brushes against the windows as the bus drives by, tapping to the same rhythm as the rubber wheels against the asphalt. Sunlight tiptoes its way in from the other side, crawling out from behind the buildings before deliquescing into the horizon. 

Kei loosely holds onto a bus handle next to the middle doorway, watching the outside scenery fade to blue. Yamaguchi had texted him today about covering someone’s shift at Shimada Mart last minute. He wonders if Yamaguchi is ringing up a customer now, or taking a break, or checking out the strawberry candies he always seems to eye. 

“Tsukishima-kun?”

Kei turns his head toward the voice from the front aisle. Asato smiles back at him, making her way over with a slight bounce that makes her curls fly away from her face. He stands up straight, tightens his grip on the handle.

“Good evening.”

“Good evening. Happy summer break!”

“Happy summer break.” His toes squirm in his shoes. “Are you going home?”

“Yeah, I live two stops away. Just had to go pick up some groceries.” She lifts up the plastic bags in her hands to present her evidence. Her smile is earnest, resembling Yamaguchi’s when he greets his favorite customers from the neighborhood. Kei looks down at his feet, testing whether his eyes can look through his shoes at his toes. They can’t.

The bus slows to a stop, exhaling its steam as the doors open. Kei looks back up as people brush past him on their way out. One more bus stop before Asato gets off. From behind the exiting passengers, Asato stares at him.

“Hey,” she starts as the doors close and the bus continues on its way, “we’re okay, right? I know I haven’t seen you at all since the breakup, but we can still be friends, the three of us.” 

Green onions and a gallon of milk peek out from the grocery bags in Asato’s hands. Kei can practically feel their weight in his forearms. “Yeah, yeah, of course.”

“Good. It wasn’t for a long time, but I do value our friendship, you know.”

“Sorry,” Kei exhales harshly, as if someone pummeled him in the stomach. “I’m sorry. I need to tell you something.”

The look on Asato’s face lacks surprise; she nods, as if this was where she expected the conversation to go all along. Kei curses himself in his head. Am I that obvious? 

“Not that I want this to mean anything, or go anywhere, but I feel like I should be honest with you.” She nods again, and Kei pushes through his guilt. “I like–”

“I know.”

Kei sighs. “You do?”

“Yeah.” She adjusts her grasp on the grocery bags nonchalantly. “It’s pretty obvious. You look at him like he’s hung the moon.”

The words don’t process until after his ears have begun to burn. “Wait, he?”

“Tadashi-kun?” She looks up at him and tilts her head. “Isn’t that what you were going to say? That you like him, you know, as more than friends?”

“I- No? I’m not– I was going to say that I like you.”

Asato stares into Kei’s forehead, then at his eyes, then at his mouth, as if she’s scanning the contents of a test, seeing what she can comprehend. The bus tugs on gravity as it slows to a stop. 

“Well,” she says finally as the doors fold outward, “I can’t tell you how you feel, of course, but I don’t think that’s it.”

She gives him a standard good night as she descends down the steps and out of the bus before Kei can say a word. The doors fold inward, and the bus tugs on gravity once more, pulling Kei along with no remorse. 

Asato is wrong. She has to be. There’s no way that Kei has feelings for his best friend. There’s no way he couldn’t have realized in all of the years they’d known each other, in all of the years they’d grown together.

Yamaguchi moves across the Shinzen gym, sweat beading in a semicircle around his eyes. He wipes his nose with the edge of his yellow jersey before he leans forward into position, signaling his readiness to Kinoshita-san on the other side of the net. His hands hover in front of him, slender fingers slightly curled but outstretched enough that Kei can see the redness blooming on his right palm. One breath, two, Yamaguchi’s chest rises and falls so quietly, so intently, as he waits for the ball to come to his side of the net.

“Are you going to practice with them?”

Kei jolts from his position in the doorway, blood rushing to his face. Yachi-san doesn’t seem to notice, or at least she pretends not to, focusing her gaze on the court. 

“I’m probably going to rest for today,” he responds belatedly.

“Rest is good! You’ve been working really hard this training camp, Tsukishima-kun.”

“Thanks. You too, Yachi-san.”

The two of them watch the ball fly over the net, back and forth, accompanied by the thump of leather against wrists, scratch of soles against polished wood. Yamaguchi’s hair is slicked back from the perspiration, exposing his forehead. Kei bites his lip.

“Yachi-san,” he begins. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure! What is it?”

“Sorry if this is too forward, but… do you like girls?”

Yachi-san coughs violently. If Kei’s face is red, hers is now crimson, heat painted even in the inner corners of her eyes. Kei thought he might already know the answer after witnessing all of her staring at Kiyoko-san last year, but maybe he shouldn’t have asked. He adjusts the sports goggles on his face.

“Never mind. You don’t have to answer.”

“N-No! It’s fine, I just, I—” Her fingers clasp around the edge of her clipboard, tensing, then relaxing. “Yes? Yes. Very much so, yes.”

“How did you know for sure?”

Kei stares straight ahead, not wanting to see her reaction to the implication. After a few seconds, he hears a slight gasp escape from her lips.

“Oh! Um, well, I tried looking things up on the internet. Like, more about those kinds of feelings? To see if the descriptions matched how I felt? I took some online quizzes, too.”

“Quizzes?”

“Yeah! They ask you questions and then tell you whether you might, um. Be gay, or not.” She coughs again, but Kei can tell that most of her embarrassment has dissipated from the steadiness of her voice. “The results aren’t always correct, of course. But I think you kind of realize how you feel while searching. The quiz is just a tool to get there.”

“Okay. That sounds helpful.”

“Yes! Maybe you can take a quiz when we get back home from camp — I mean, I don’t know if you were asking for yourself or — but if it’s for yourself that’s totally fine, of course!—”

Kei turns toward Yachi-san, who now looks like she wants to bash her clipboard against her forehead. He smiles. “Thanks, Yachi-san. I’ll tell you what I figure out.”

Yachi-san tilts her head up to meet his gaze, and at the sight of his smile she beams. “Oh, yes, okay. Okay!” 

(“What were you talking about with Yachi-san earlier?” Yamaguchi asks later that night while they’re brushing their teeth.

“Nothing,” Kei mutters, hoping his face doesn’t give anything away. “You saw us talking?”

Yamaguchi’s face looks pink under the bathroom light. Maybe he forgot to put on sunscreen again. “Just noticed while we were practicing. Wasn’t staring or anything.”

“Okay.” 

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

God, he needs to figure this out, and fast.)

Quiz: How Do I Know If I’m Gay? Press “start” to begin.

Kei adjusts the pillow behind his back, stares at his screen, takes a breath. Okay, let’s do this. He presses the button.

Question 1: Do you like Beyoncé? 

Kei wrinkles his nose. What a weird and very American question to ask in a quiz about sexuality. He clicks “I don’t know” and continues on.

Question 2: Do you like having sex with people of your same gender?

“This is so fucking stupid,” Kei groans, slamming his laptop shut and sliding under the covers till his head is fully covered. The Internet is a scam. He should’ve never trusted it to be his emotional support.

After a few minutes of lying still under the covers, the fog of his breath condensing on his glasses, Kei lifts himself back up and gingerly opens his laptop. He searches again and clicks on the second result on the page.

Quiz: Am I Gay? Kei presses start. Question 1: Have you ever found yourself thinking about someone of the same gender for a long time?

Kei thinks. Does thinking about Yamaguchi with Asato count? He does also keep other mental tabs on Yamaguchi, like his favorite foods, and which days working at Shimada Mart are the most tiring (Sundays and Thursdays). But that’s just what friends do: look out for each other. He selects “I don’t know.”

Question 2: Have you ever found yourself thinking about someone of a different gender for a long time?

Asato’s freckles. Kei finds himself thinking about them a lot. When she laughs at Yamaguchi’s jokes they wiggle, undulating like heat waves against a summer sunset sky. She doesn’t have as many as Yamaguchi though; his skin is spoiled with them, like little glitter specks that are impossible to take off once they stick. There’s a few faded freckles in between his eyebrows, and some on the outline of his neck, and a colony of them in the crook of each elbow.

Oh?

Question 3: Have you ever been jealous because someone of a different gender showed interest in/was in a relationship with someone else and not with you?

Kei hovers over the “Yes” circle. Would he ever date Asato? Probably not, for Yamaguchi’s sake. He had never felt anything for any other girl in his classes, let alone be jealous of them for being with other people. He switches his answer to “No.”

Question 4: Have you ever been jealous because someone of the same gender showed interest in/was in a relationship with someone else and not with you?

Kei remembers the night Yamaguchi admitted his past crushes on Nii-san and Yachi-san to him clearly: the cold air, the smell of melon, the unusual warmth of his skin. Yamaguchi said he liked Hinata too, at one point. If Kei had to watch Yamaguchi be lovey-dovey with Hinata every day, he’d maybe consider quitting volleyball for good. But that had more to do with Hinata being Hinata than jealousy.

Yamaguchi dating Asato. Yamaguchi smiling up at Asato on the second floor instead of looking at him after a good serve. Yamaguchi telling Kei about their most recent date, their inside jokes, the things he admires about her. 

Yamaguchi slowly falling out of his reach, going two steps ahead, then three, then too many to count, that he can barely see him. Yamaguchi finding comfort and finding love in someone else, someone that isn’t him.

You look at him like he’s hung the moon.

Oh.

Question 5: What do you think your results for this quiz is going to be?

Kei shuts his laptop. He doesn’t need to see.

Kei’s real third kiss is with Hinata Shouyou.

“How did you get my address.”

“Let me in, Stingyshima, it’s freezing.”

“No.”

“Please?”

“It’s 17 degrees outside.”

“Well you wouldn’t be cold because your heart is made of ice.”

Kei opens the door, and Hinata slips in. He doesn’t know when they reached this point, where Kei considers Hinata a friend that he can see one-on-one outside of school and practice, but he doesn’t mind it as much as he might have last year. If Hinata went out of his way to find his address, it was probably something serious, anyway.

Hinata slips his shoes off, wiggling like a worm and rubbing his hands over his upper arms. Kei leads them into his room and stands awkwardly in his doorway as he watches Hinata take it in: the long dresser against the left wall, the desk next to the door with dinosaur figurines hovering above, the bed shoved into the bottom right corner with a light blue blanket hanging off its side. Hinata goes and sits on the edge of the bed, bouncing lightly. The blanket falls completely off and onto the floor.

“Tsukishima.”

“Hinata.”

Kei watches the orange-haired boy look down at his fiddling fingers. When he looks up, his eyes are wide, filled with determination.

“Can you kiss me?”

“No,” Kei answers immediately. “What the fuck?”

Hinata whines, leaning back on his hands. “Why not?”

“Is that seriously a question you’re asking right now?”

“It’s not because I like you! I mean, I do, for whatever reason — I don’t know if you know this, but you suck — but I don’t like you like that!” A faint blush colors Hinata’s face, and he turns his head away into his shoulder. “I just need to test something.”

Test? Kei remembers Mario Kart, empty beer cans, Kageyama’s arms around Hinata’s shoulders. “Does this have anything to do with a certain king that we know?”

Hinata’s feet kick out at him, and he brings his face into his hands. “Shut up,” he says, the words muffled into his palms.

It’s funny, and in any other situation he’d just laugh and push Hinata out of his house, but today he says — “Okay.”

Hinata’s head swerves towards him, his eyes wide again. “Okay?”

“Yeah. I’m only doing it once.”

The other boy shrieks softly, crawling backward till his back slams into the wall. “Are you ill or something? Do you have a fever? Did you get a concussion during practice today?”

“You’re the one who asked!”

“I know, but I didn’t think you’d actually agree!”

Kei sighs, then, “Maybe I need to test something too.” He needs a final confirmation, needs to give himself the result he refused to look at on his laptop screen.

Hinata’s posture straightens. “Oh. Okay, yeah.”

“Although I don’t know why you didn’t ask Yamaguchi instead.”

“He’s working right now, and this was kind of an impulse decision.”

“Of course.”

How do you kiss someone? It’s not like Kei has any real experience. Hinata obviously doesn’t either, because now he’s standing in the middle of the room and his eyes are clenched tight and his lips are puckered up like a cartoon character, waiting for the event to commence.

Kei shuts his own eyes and leans down to meet him. He feels Hinata’s nose smush into his right cheekbone. It lasts two seconds before Kei pulls away from the neck strain.

Hinata blinks down at the floor. “That was… gross.”

That was gross, Kei’s thoughts echo. But it was also… not that bad. Maybe even nice. Much nicer than kissing Asato back in middle school, back in his dream. Jesus Christ. Fuck. “Fuck.”

“Hey! Don’t swear like that after kissing me!”

“I cannot believe I agreed to do that.”

“It’s your fault it was so bad! You’re too tall!”

“You’re too short.” Water. Kei needs water. And maybe mouthwash, if mouthwash works on lips. Why was it nice? It was not nice. Fuck you, Kei, fuck you. 

Hinata huffs and sits on the floor, legs in a triangle in front of him. Kei watches him bite his lip in contemplation. 

“So? Did you figure it out?”
The orange mop of hair nods up and down. “Yeah.” He looks up. “I think– I think it would’ve been less gross if it was with Kageyama.”

“Mm.”

“Because he’s tall, you know, but not as tall as you, so it would’ve been at a better angle.”

“Yeah.” 

“And because I like him. Kageyama. I like Kageyama.”

Kei smirks. “Gross.”

“Shut up,” Hinata says, but this time he’s smiling. He tucks his head into his hands again. “I really like him. Like, I’m in like with him.”

Kei ignores Hinata’s weird play on words and steps back to lean on his dresser, crossing his right leg in front of his left. He taps his fingers against the white wood of the first drawer. From his window, he watches the sun fall beneath the horizon.

“I think I like Yamaguchi.”

Hinata peeks out from behind his fingers. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

The last limb of sunlight grabbles at Kei’s window, and they bask in its heat, their confessions circling alongside the ceiling fan.

This is deja vu at its finest, Kei thinks. The air is stickier, hotter, the sun yet to finish its soliloquy in the sky; yet the smell of melon still lingers, and the boy beside him drives him to the precipice, ready to jump.

“I think I might be gay.”

It’s the last day of summer break. They sit outside of Shimada Mart again, Kei’s palms underneath his thighs as he rocks ever so slightly back and forth. Yamaguchi’s half-licked melon bar slides down and encases his knuckles.

“You’re what?”

Kei’s head shoots up. “Is it bad?”

“No, no, I’m literally bi, Tsukki, I’m — I’m just surprised.”

“Oh.” Back and forth, back and forth. “Yeah, me too.”

Silence settles between their laps, save for the dragging of Kei’s soles on the concrete. The inchoate autumn wind tickles the back of his neck. 

“I also. Um. Kissed Hinata. Maybe.”

Yamaguchi’s hips swivel around so fast that Kei can hear his jeans scratching against the bench. “You what? With who?”

Kei fiddles with his index fingers under his thighs. “I know.”

“Hinata? Hinata.”

“It was bad. Just so you know.”

Yamaguchi curls his free hand into a fist, pressing it against his forehead. “Hold on. Need to process this. Having a brain-freeze in, like, fifty different ways right now.” Kei glances cautiously over at him and sees his eyes widen from under his bangs. “Hold on. Hinata told me he was going to confess to Kageyama today?”

“Oh. Yeah, actually—”

“Oh my god, are you going to fight Kageyama for Hinata? I mean, I’m rooting for you always, but they have it bad for each other, Tsukki, I can tell!”

“This isn’t a manga, Yamaguchi.”

“I mean! It could be!”

“And I know Hinata likes Kageyama. I- He-” Kei exhales. “That’s why we kissed. I think he wanted to see whether he liked boys or not. I don’t like him, I swear.”

“Oh.” Yamaguchi faces forward again, and after a few moments laughs softly. “Okay. For the record, I wasn’t actually rooting for you, Tsukki, so I’m glad you don’t like Hinata.” 

Kei’s chest tightens at that, and he allows himself to grin. “Yeah. Me too.” The consequent laugh that escapes Yamaguchi keeps Kei warm in the cool evening breeze.

He’s still dangling on the precipice, though. Final jump.

As if he can read Kei’s mind, Yamaguchi leads him to the edge. “But Hinata made you realize, then?” he asks, staring uncharacteristically hard at the ice cream covering his fingers. “That you like boys?”

Kei shakes his head cautiously. “Not really. He confirmed it, I guess? But it was really Asato who made me realize. Not that I like guys, but that I.” Final jump. “I like you.”

Yamaguchi goes still beside him. Kei keeps going, his words scared and free-falling.

“Because I thought I liked her freckles, and her laugh, and her friendliness — I thought I liked her, but it was all because she reminded me of you, and because she was being l-loved. By you.” He scratches his head and fixes his gaze on the trash can, upright this time in its spot on the street. “And I thought maybe I ruined your relationship with her by always being around and I thought you knew and that’s why you broke up with her? Because I ruined your relationship by always being around?”

The other boy still hasn’t moved, hasn’t said a word. Kei feels himself falling, falling, crashing into the water below. He swallows.

“So. Yeah. I’m gay. And I like you. And obviously you don’t need to like me back or anything or do anything about it, I just thought I should — I wanted to tell you.”

“Are you serious,” Yamaguchi says quietly. His tone is flat. “This isn’t some elaborate prank you’re pulling to mess with me.”

“I– No? I mean yes, I’m serious,” Kei replies weakly. His heart is about to burst out of his chest. “Not a prank.”

For a moment, everything stops, a still frame. Then suddenly Yamaguchi’s non-ice-cream arm is wound tightly around his shoulder, and he can feel Yamaguchi’s lips against his neck, and Yamaguchi feels warm, so, so warm. 

“Tsukki,” he breathes, wrapping his arm even tighter around Kei. “Tsukki, I’ve liked you for the longest time, like, for years. That’s why I went to bed early when you and Hinata and Kageyama came over, because I was so flustered, that’s why I broke up with Asato, you idiot, because I couldn’t stop thinking about how I was in love with my best friend and she realized, I was so obvious that my girlfriend brought it up with me, god.” He pulls away and sets his gaze on Kei’s eyes, his nose, his lips. The following whisper conducts the symphony in Kei’s heart into an uproar. “Can I kiss you?”

Kei’s fourth kiss is with Yamaguchi Tadashi, and his fifth kiss is with Yamaguchi Tadashi, and his sixth kiss is with Yamaguchi Tadashi. It’s obvious that Yamaguchi has more experience, so Kei just lets himself be carried along, obliging when he subtly prods his mouth open, when he pulls at his wrist and intertwines their free hands together.

It feels foreign and familiar, like Kei is a traveler finally returning home. Yamaguchi tastes like a mixture of melon and strawberry candy, and he’s soft, and he’s everything Kei could ever need.

And he laughs when Yamaguchi pulls away with a whispered “Oh shit, fuck, I forgot my ice cream was all over my hand, I’m sorry,” because it’s so silly and chaotic and perfect, and he’s in love with his best friend, and Yamaguchi Tadashi is his best friend. And he pulls his best friend in, melon ice cream and all, and kisses him again, and again, and again.

(Kei’s elephants leave the room as swiftly as they came.)