Archive of Our Own ^beta

It’s the first day of spring break. Tobio and Tadashi have been out since morning. Had this been any other day, Kei would be losing his mind by now. Why have they skipped class again? It is not okay to just wander around like this all the time. Where could they be all this time anyway?

It’s about three in the afternoon now, and Kei would be losing his mind, because one, he’d have lied to about three of his favourite professors (that think of him highly), trying to make up excuses for their absence in class, and two, how dare they leave him alone and have all the fun by themselves. (Not that Kei would cut class to “have fun”, but they could’ve at least asked him if he wanted to join them or something so he could’ve told them off.)

Thankfully though, this isn’t any other day.

It’s the first day of spring break, and Tobio and Tadashi haven’t shown up at Kei’s dorm once. Kei would be losing his mind by now, but he’s not. In fact, today, he doesn’t mind that they didn’t come to visit him at all. They could be blackout drunk and passed out in front of a parked car for all he cares (but he knows Tadashi doesn’t drink, and in his company, Tobio wouldn’t either). There’s no reason for him to be losing his mind right now. He’s within the safe walls of his own room, headphones on, most of his necessary belongings packed and put away in a single blue suitcase, and he’s lying on his back on the floor. It’s very peaceful. Half the college campus is empty now; they’ve already left for their homes, the other half’s getting ready to leave, with the exception of some that are deciding to stay. The chatter of the student crowd is easy to tune out mainly because it’s peaceful today. (Again, had this been any other day, it would’ve been far from easy.)

It’s the last week of the dreaded month of March, (because it comes with the dreaded week of exams, of course, which ended yesterday), and Kei cannot wait to go back home. Of course, Akiteru will be here to pick them all up by this time tomorrow (even when Kei had tried his best to tell him that they can all take the train by themselves, especially because they’re adults now, Akiteru had protested only by saying but you’re baby adults! My baby adults or something like that, and the others didn’t seem to mind, so they would be traveling with him on the train), but Kei really cannot wait to go back home. (What, everyone misses home.)

Did he… fall asleep? He must have. Something woke him up though. His headphones aren’t blasting anything violently loud, there’s no one knocking at his door either. (Only two people knock at his door anyway; they’re nowhere to be seen. Also Kenma, occasionally, to crash here when he feels like the walk to his own dorm is way too long, but he must’ve already gone home. And Shouyou.) But no one’s knocking— not at his door, he thinks.

Then: he looks at his window and— that’s where the noise is coming from. Someone is throwing pebbles at his glass window. Had this been any other day, Kei wouldn’t have even spared a glance at the window, which could very possibly be in pieces within the next minute. But maybe he’s on a post-exam-week high, or just a tired-college-student-finally-going-home-after-painful-semester high, he doesn’t know, because he actually goes to look out the window to see who it could be. Throwing pebbles. At the glass window of his dorm. Whoever it is, they’ve thrown four pebbles now. (Sometimes, living on the first floor of a college dorm is a blissful experience, because the building has a total of seven floors, and the elevator is broken and forgotten, by the students and the staff, and Kei is not fond of the stairs at all. Other times, though, living on the first floor is a curse. Times like these. When your window is about to be shattered into pieces because of some dumbass that doesn’t have the courtesy to climb the stairs to the first floor and knock. At the door.) Five pebbles. Six.

‘Tsukishima!’ Shouyou’s unmistakable voice calls from outside.

Kei puts his face in the window, and yet, Shouyou feels the need to throw a seventh pebble and— giggle. Like that.

And boy, is it a sight. It’s Shouyou, of course, and he’s on a fucking scooter that God knows where he got from. No student that lives on campus owns a scooter of all vehicles, and not an obnoxiously orange one at that; no one’s that stupid. The scooter actually matches his equally obnoxious orange head, but it’s not like Kei’s going to point it out and tell him that, because he’s Kei. Even if it matches his hair and it looks cute, or whatever.

‘What,’ he says instead, looking outside his window.

‘Come on down, let’s go,’ Shouyou declares.

Now, any normal being would question a random, out of nowhere come on down, let’s go thrown in their face, (because first of all, let’s go where?), but Kei doesn’t even bother asking the minimum of where, or why they’re going. Maybe Kei isn’t a normal being after all. Maybe Tadashi’s been right all along, he might just be a little bit of an idiot himself. Maybe it’s the post-exam-week high.

It’s got to be the post-exam-week high, because Kei finds himself telling Shouyou immediately after: ‘Okay, wait three minutes.’

Kei is ready and down in three minutes, and, what the hell.

The sky is beautifully painted in layers of yellows and a calm crimson and a bright orange, all bleeding into each other, the way they would be only before the sun sets, making everything under it just as pretty; Shouyou being no exception.

Everything looks golden as ever. Everything of Shouyou’s looks golden as ever— his tan skin, the honey that his eyes hold, his stupid scooter, Shouyou himself— golden. Truth be told, now that he’s looking at Shouyou, all Kei wants to do is dissolve into this dripping golden of his. He just looks, stares, at him fiddle with the buttons at the scooter’s handle, as a strand of hair makes its way onto his face, and Kei really just wants to put it back where it fell from for no reason at all.

Kei doesn’t realise that he’s been straight up staring at Shouyou, until— he gets smacked in the face. And—

Right. He’s supposed to be mad at Shouyou for throwing stones at his window, and for hitting his face, and all that. Kei tries, really. To be annoyed by him. He can’t even pretend so. Post-exam-week high, he tells himself. Post-exam-week high.

‘Did you just space out?’

‘No,’ Kei tries, narrowing his eyes in hopes of ridding his eyes of all the golden he’s seeing. ‘Possibly. I’m looking forward to going home,’ he says, as if it explains anything.

‘I am too!’ Shouyou says, as if he understood Kei’s not-explanation. ‘Anyway, get on the scooter, we’re going.’

He hands Kei the single helmet that’s been hanging on his arm ever since he got here. Kei takes one look at Shouyou’s ridiculous orange haystack head, notices the inappropriately generous amount of wax in it and assumes that it’s Kuroo Tetsurou who’s taught him to ruin his hair like that, (having Kuroo Tetsurou as a senior is a whole ordeal on its own, even if Shouyou doesn’t think so at all), and finally decides that Shouyou won’t be needing the helmet with hair that thick anyway, so he accepts it.

Now would be the right time to ask about where it is that he wants to take him, or why the scooter is orange, or anything at all, really. Only an idiot would refrain from asking their ride about the destination. Today, Kei’s starting to think that he might actually be an idiot, because he does get on the scooter without one question.

They’re still on a street that's close enough to campus for Kei to recognise. About ten minutes into the ride, he spots a slightly familiar convenience store, and tells Shouyou to stop, not without slapping his shoulder thrice. To his surprise, Shouyou’s able to halt the scooter without it flipping over. How is Shouyou this good with the scooter? When did he even learn to ride it? There’s no time to ask, though.

'Wait here, I'll come back quickly,' he tells him as he gets off the scooter, then proceeds to sprint into the store.

Minutes later, he returns, sprinting with the same speed at which he'd left for the store, holding carry bags in both hands, (he must really look stupid, because he'd forgotten to take his helmet off, his headphones are bouncing around his neck, and he's running like a loser), and sits behind Shouyou.

'They had strawberry ice cream!' he gladly informs him, and it comes out much more enthusiastic than he intended.

'But you like chocolate,' Shouyou says, frowning.

'I got myself chocolate. The strawberry is… for you. Now start the scooter.'

He chuckles, loud and airy, then teases, 'Don't even know where I'm taking you and still in such a hurry, eh?'

'The ice cream will melt,' Kei says, honest. He can't even think of witty answers today, but then again, his ability to think actually always abandons him when Shouyou’s around.

He starts the engine, and once again, they're on the road.

'Where'd you get the scooter anyway? It's orange,' Kei asks, because he’s genuinely curious about the damned two-wheeler.

'Oh, they didn't tell you?' Shouyou raises an eyebrow, 'Tobio and Tadashi got drunk, like, really drunk, rented it from God knows where, then rode it to my room and passed the fuck out. I couldn't let their money go to waste and besides they’d want me to—' he gasps suddenly, very dramatic, 'what if one of them threw up in their sleep?'

'You'll be returning to a mess in your room, then,' Kei says, unsure of whether this "mess" would be their puked up insides on the floor, or their dead bodies from choking on their vomit. He isn't thinking about the ugly scooter anymore. Tobio got drunk and got Tadashi drunk with him. They're absolutely insane. And also they’ve just proven themselves to be the stupidest of the lot because who the fuck rents an orange scooter? Kei could never, sober or wasted. Also, Yamaguchi does drink. And yet.

‘Why orange?’ he says. Makes a face.

‘Huh?’

‘Why’s the scooter an ugly orange?’ he scrunches up more of his face, pointing to all of the scooter.

‘Hey! At least we’ve got the scooter!’

And yeah, he can't help but feel like he owes his dumb, out-of-their-mind friends because it’s them that actually got the scooter and he can sit behind Shouyou and go wherever he wants to take him.

‘...we have, yes.’

'I... hope they're alive,' Shouyou prays, and so does Kei.

Shouyou turns one corner, and another, bringing them to a crossing Kei’s never come at before, and now he really doesn’t know where they’re going. It’s quiet, and there are patches of grass on either side of the road. It must be a little away from the city, he thinks. The weather is lovely, (it’s spring, of course it’s lovely), the sky a mild red, and he finds himself smiling at all of it.

‘You know,’ Shouyou starts, ‘your headphones are playing something. I can hear it, the music coming out of them.’

HE CAN HEAR IT?

‘I.’

‘Yeah. I mean, they’re around your neck and your neck is right behind mine, so,’ he says, and he’s really trying not to laugh. ‘Don’t worry I won’t tell anyone you were listening to, well.’

‘…thank you.’

‘Yeah,’ he says, and bursts into laughter. The scooter loses balance for two whole seconds— Kei thinks they might actually fall—but he finally manages to get hold of it.

‘You know you could tell me where we’re going,’ he says, a minute later.

‘Now you’re asking. I would’ve told you earlier if you’d asked me,’ he replies, stops the scooter abruptly, and this time it screeches. ‘But we’re here,’ he says, and kills the ignition. The scooter makes a funny whirring sound before shutting off, and Kei wonders, for a second, whether it’ll start again or not. ‘Get out,’ he commands, and Kei moves immediately.

He takes the plastic bags from Kei’s hands and proceeds to take something out of the scooter’s seat.

They’ve halted at a— a wooden bridge. It’s so small it would take Kei only two strides to walk its entire length. It looks a little worn, mostly because of how old it must be and less because of the people that have trod it. It’s still very tempting to step on it, if only to feel like a tall llama, so he does. He walks to the centre of it, places his hands on the railing, dangerously leans on it, and looks down at the thin but still flowing stream of water, clear as ever. The aged wood of the bridge is a bright brown under the setting sun and— Kei’s really just happy to be here. There are a lot of saplings and weeds all around the stream and he just kind of wants to sit between them. Actually, they should go sit between them, under the bridge. It all looks so serene after all, and he wishes he’d have come here sooner, since they’ll be leaving tomorrow itself; he’s the one to blame, because he’d never gone exploring the place willingly. Anyway, they should go sit under the bridge.

‘Shouyou, let’s go sit down there,’ Kei turns to the parked scooter and starts to say, but immediately looks down from the bridge when he realises that he’s already reached under there, and he’s holding the bag of ice cream in one hand and what very much looks like a ukulele in the other. Kei hopes to God it’s not one, he can’t afford to lose his mind right now, not on this fine evening, not like this. He couldn’t have been dragged here to be sung to. No. No. He’s looking up at him from under the bridge now, smiling that disgustingly beautiful smile of his, and pointing at the instrument, which is very clearly a ukulele. God.

‘Get your ass down here, Tsukki, I know you saw my uke,’ he calls from down there. ‘The ice cream is melting.’

This is it, Kei thinks. The stupid boy’s going to sing. And it’s not that his voice is bad or anything, if you’d ask Kei, he’d actually write you a paper on why he thinks that it sounds like honey. And it’s also probably his favourite voice.

It’s just that the last time he’d heard him sing, it was for Tadashi, and it was a lullaby, one of the kind that everyone thinks they’ve forgotten but can recall each one of its words the moment someone starts to sing it, because he missed home so much, that he was bawling on the bathroom floor; but it had put him to sleep. (Kei was very, very close to get Akiteru on call and ask him to tell him how he makes his udon the way Tadashi likes it.) And Kei wasn’t supposed to hear it or anything; he’d only been passing by the bathroom. But he’d stood there for a while, completely frozen, then sat with his back to the bathroom door for as long as he can remember, because Shouyou’d sung to Tadashi the whole night, and Kei’d wept too. Quiet, wide-eyed, and staring at his cold hands. He’d been sung to sleep too.

So, no, he cannot have Shouyou sing in front of him.

He goes to sit next to him under the bridge anyway.

Kei makes his way through the weeds surrounding him, and sees Shouyou seated on the grass that’s short enough to sit on. He pats the ground next to him and gestures for Kei to sit beside him. He really is going to sing now. This really is it.

‘I'm going to sing you a song,’ Shouyou says, and Kei did not need to know that he’d be singing to him.

‘Right,’ Kei answers, because he cannot think of anything else to say. Shouyou grins, wide and bright, and Kei’s heart does a backflip.

He strums down on the open strings with his fingers once, twice, then holds down a chord, a random one.

Then he starts to strum for the song. Begins to sing.

‘Hello dear,’ his eyes lock with Kei’s own, ‘you’ve been pulling me closer,’ and Kei’s heart is doing multiple backflips now, ‘let’s write about you and me, I’ll sing to you a lullaby, let’s make a story of our own.

‘We walk, everywhere hand in hand, walking this path of life, like life’s been leading us, together we walk these roads,’ he strums, and Kei’s eyes are stinging. He doesn’t know why.

Shouyou keeps strumming.

‘You have beautiful eyes and smile, it’s melting my heart so fast, making me love you more…’

A beat too late, Kei reaches out for Shouyou’s hands, after he’s finished the song. He only just wants him to sing it once again. Just once.

He smiles. Sticks his hands out for Kei without a word. he takes Shouyou’s hands in his and puts his palms to his eyes. Please, please, please, Kei doesn’t say. Sing one more time.

‘Thank you,’ he says instead. He doesn’t know why it comes out in a shaky breath. He doesn’t know why there’s a lump in his throat. ‘Really.’

Shouyou smiles back, wide and satisfied. Neither of them say anything for a while, the silence only broken by Kei’s quiet sniffling, but he isn’t sniffling, it’s his allergies. Stupid allergies. He doesn’t let go of Shouyou’s hands.

Finally, Kei makes to look at the sky slowly blending into the dark. It’s getting late. The ice cream is melting. It’s probably already turned all watery and warm and nauseating, the way he likes it during the winter.

Kei is here with Shouyou.

‘Hey,’ Shouyou starts, his hands warm in Kei’s. ‘Let’s go home.’

‘Yeah. Let’s.’

It’s only an afternoon of have I packed everything I need and have I packed Tobio’s everything later that Kei finally finds himself settled into the window seat next to Shouyou on the train back home. His two friends— the damned bastards— had even put up a fight against Kei when all he wanted to do was to sit next to Shouyou quietly, share music maybe, (and the better kind, not the type that Shouyou caught him listening to on the ride to the bridge), but left them alone and gone to sit with Akiteru four rows in the front. Kei doesn’t miss Tobio’s tight grip on Tadashi’s hands either.

From afar, Kei can’t really tell what Akiteru’s talking about for sure, but from what he can make out, Akiteru’s got a new cat— which explains the bright red scratch across his nose— and that it’s a grey one (and Kei’s actually really surprised that their mom even let him get one). Kei’d missed him, really. He’ll hug him harder when they get home.

And— Shouyou. Well, he’s been staring at Kei all this while, and Kei can pretend to stare out the window only for so long before he has to look back at him. He fears his face might be turning red. No, he can feel it heat up. God.

‘Do you want to kiss me?’ Shouyou asks, his tone way too calm and just as flat, it doesn’t suit his question. Kei, too, would ask to kiss someone in that very tone. Wait.

Do you want to kiss me?

Yes, yes, I do, Kei doesn’t blurt.

Where are the words when he needs them the most?

Yes, why can’t he tell him?

Why the hell is his tongue numb.

Nothing seems to come out of his stupid, stupid mouth, so, hasty, selfish, he lets himself press his lips to Shouyou’s.