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Tsukishima remembers his first kiss with every one of his boyfriends and girlfriend. They had all been so different and yet, they all had something in common. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it though.
His first kiss with Yamaguchi had been like slipping on your favorite old hoodie. They were sitting on Yamaguchi’s bed, listening to music on the Bluetooth speaker, each doing their own thing. Tsukishima was doodling on a small sketchpad while Yamaguchi played some game on his switch. He was leaning heavily on the other boy’s shoulder.
“What are you playing?” Tsukishima asked, looking over at the console.
“This new game called Kauil’s Treasure,” he replied as his Indiana Jones-looking character moved across the screen. “Some indie group made it. It’s pretty cool.”
Yamaguchi looked up at him, a smile spreading across his lips.
“What are you drawing?”
“Nothing, just doodles.” Tsukishima crinkled his nose as Yamaguchi giggled and leaned further into his space to see the page.
“But I love your doodles,” he said before looking up at Tsukishima again, another giggle already spilling out.
Tsukishima’s breath caught in his throat for a second. They were so close, and he could see all of Yamaguchi’s freckles and the little spots of darker color in his green eyes and the dimple on his left cheek. He leaned in before he could really process what he was doing, but Yamaguchi must have been following a similar train of thought because he met him in the middle.
It was a soft kiss. Sweet. A press of lips against lips that filled Tsukishima with a warm sense of calm. It didn’t even last very long. Just a few seconds and then they were pulling away, still looking into each other’s eyes. Yamaguchi nuzzled his neck with a happy hum, and they went back to the game and the doodles.
When Kageyama first kissed Tsukishima, his mind made a record scratch sound. It was in the club room a few weeks after they had started dating. The others had all left already, Yachi and Hinata chirping along with Nishinoya. He could hear Yamaguchi and Tanaka laughing along with them as well.
Tsukishima was buttoning up his uniform shirt, going over practice in his head and analyzing his blocks. He’d been on the top of his game, stuffing both Hinata’s and Tanaka’s spikes. And he’d also made quite a few nice spikes of his own. As much as it unnerved him, Kageyama’s sets were perfectly accurate, the dream of any hitter. He placed his headphones around his neck.
“Nice practice today, your highness,” he said softly as he turned around.
But he wasn’t expecting Kageyama to already be there, in front of him, staring at him like he’d bit into a lemon. That was the face Tsukishima had come to associate with random words of praise or acts of affection when it came to Kageyama. Even after recognizing his feeling for the blonde and the others, the setter still seemed to struggle with exteriorizing them. So Tsukishima did what he always did in situations like that: he smirked down at his boyfriend, relishing in the few centimeters that separated them in height, and waited for Kageyama to figure out a way to say or do whatever he was struggling with.
Kageyama looked down at his hands and stiffly reached for the other boy. He placed his hand on his chest, gripping at his shirt, and mumbled, “you did good today.”
The smirk on Tsukishima’s face softened into a smile, warmth spreading out throughout his body from their one point of contact. As much as he liked to tease and prod at Kageyama, he really appreciated his attempts at expressing himself. He hummed contentedly, covering Kageyama’s hand with his own.
When Kageyama looked up at him again, there was a determined set to his jaw, which in hindsight should have been warning enough, but Tsukishima didn’t register it at the time. Next thing he knew, Kageyama had pushed him back onto the wall and pressed his lips against his. Tsukishima stood frozen for a few seconds, not quite understanding what was happening, and then Kageyama pulled away, a shadow of pain behind his eyes.
A bright laugh escaped Tsukishima and he wrapped an arm around Kageyama’s waist before he could pull away further. He ran a thumb over the crease that had formed on his brow.
“Don’t frown, you moron, you just caught me by surprise,” he said, the laughter still clear in his voice.
And before Kageyama could reply, Tsukishima leaned down and kissed him again.
With Yachi he’d had to take the lead. She was still very nervous around all of them, and any sort of affection towards her or between the boys made her blush violently. Yamaguchi loved to torture her with it, and even though Hinata and Kageyama weren’t trying to tease her about it on purpose, they were the ones that flustered her the most. Tsukishima, on the other hand, had gladly taken a back seat and settled into his role as the calm one when it came to her.
At first, he had waited until she’d made the first move to touch him, and after a few weeks of casual lingering hands on his arm or his back, Yachi had ruffled his hair one day and he would have sworn his chest had exploded. After that, he began returning the touches: he would lightly rest his hand at the small of her back, or place his hands on her shoulders for a few seconds, or maybe brush a lock of her hair behind her ears.
The boys took turns walking her home, and Tsukishima quietly relished the days he got to go with her because she had taken to holding hands along the way. At first, it was just fingers interlocked but as she’d gotten more comfortable, she’d started walking closer to him and playing with his fingers. That day he had one of her hands clasped in his while the other was wrapped around his forearm. She was talking and smiling up at him, and his whole world had narrowed down to only her and the sound of her happy giggles. The warmth in his chest sunk its claws once more.
When they reached her building, Yachi jumped on the first step to her front door and turned around. She hadn’t let go of his hand and she pulled Tsukishima closer, a big smile on her face. Her hair whirled around with her and the faint dusting of pink over the bridge of her nose was making Tsukishima’s heart twist in his chest. In that moment, he forgot all about waiting for her to make the first move and he just leaned in.
The crash of their lips was a bit more forceful than he had intended, but Yachi stood solid against him. She squeezed his hand and kissed back, resting more of her weight against his chest. A tiny, pleased hum vibrated in her throat and Tsukishima swallowed it eagerly. When Tsukishima pulled away, Yachi absently chased his lips before smiling.
“I like it when you walk me home,” she said into the shrinking space between them.
Hinata was the last one to share a first kiss with Tsukishima. Some years later, when the five of them were all comfortable and established, they talked about why Hinata had waited so long, and Tsukishima’s heart broke a little.
When they all first started dating, things were confusing. They all knew there was something going on between them, but it took them so very long to put tentative labels on it. Yamaguchi was the most outspoken when it came to their relationship. Between him and Yachi, they’d managed to make the other three realize that being together was possible, and after that things started to fall into place.
The dynamics between each of them varied and changed as they learned more about each other. It became clear pretty quickly that Hinata and Yamaguchi were the most openly affectionate of them. Hinata was always touching the others: he’d jump on Kageyama’s back and cling to him like a koala, he’d lay his head in Yamaguchi’s lap when they were resting in between drills, he’d pull Yachi onto his lap whenever he got a chance at lunch. But for the first few months, he wouldn’t touch Tsukishima.
Tsukishima assumed it was because out of them all, he was the one Hinata might like the least. Their relationship was a bit strained in their first year of high school, after all. But in truth, it had been because Hinata had thought the exact same thing about him. So they both stewed in their doubt about each other for months until a particularly difficult practice match against Date Tech.
The tight iron wall had added a very potent canon to their arsenal that year and Karasuno was struggling to surmount the challenge it posed. Until the middle of the second set, when Tsukishima finally got used to the new player and stuffed his next spike.
He landed heavily on his feet and only spared the other team a smirk before turning around to face his teammates. And then he almost toppled over when Hinata crashed into him. The redhead wrapped his legs around Tsukishima’s waist and pressed their lips together as the taller boy scrambled to regain his balance without dropping his boyfriend in the process.
The kiss was all heat, and Tsukishima had to bite back a pleased rumble because they were in the middle of a match and very much in public. But he couldn’t help the way his fingers sunk into the meat of Hinata’s thighs in an attempt to pull him closer. Hinata’s hands were warm against his cheeks when he pulled away, everything around them slightly faded. But then Koganegawa had let out a strangled shriek, and Nishinoya was whistling and yelling at Hinata, and he was dropping to the ground with a laugh and getting back into position for the next volley. And Tsukishima was left standing there, a confused smile on his face.
Yeah, Tsukishima remembers his first kiss with all of his boyfriends and girlfriend. And even though each had been different, they all had something in common. Tsukishima loved them all.