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“Is the florist here yet? I swear, I just talked to someone from the shop last night and they promised me the floral arrangements would be delivered at nine a.m. on the dot, and it is now,” Tsukishima stops pacing around his room to check his bedside clock, “Nine fourteen.” The blinking red numbers change, as if to mock him. “Nine fifteen.”
“Tsukki, calm down,” Yamaguchi says for what feels like the hundredth time this morning. Much like the ninety-nine times before, it does nothing to calm Tsukishima down. “Maybe they got stuck in traffic, or had trouble finding the house? This place is kind of out in the middle of nowhere.” He takes a noisy slurp of his coffee and Tsukishima pauses his pacing once again to shoot him an annoyed look.
As stressed as he is, Tsukishima knows that Yamaguchi does make a good point. He and Kuroo even ended up spending close to half an hour driving up and down winding back country roads trying to find this place, and it’s Kuroo’s family’s farm house. It was left to his mother by her parents, and she insisted that the two of them have their wedding here.
Their wedding. Tsukishima’s wedding to Kuroo Tetsurou, the boy he fell in love with at fifteen, then again at sixteen, and seventeen, and eighteen, and so on and so forth every year that he’s been lucky enough to know him. This wedding is ten years in the making, and Tsukishima will be damned if he lets a single thing screw up their big day.
It’s been a hell of a test, keeping everything running smoothly in a house full of their wedding guests. Both of their families, a few extended family members, and all of their closest friends, under one roof for an entire weekend.
Tsukishima has so far managed to keep his great aunt and Kuroo’s old high school volleyball coach from coming to blows over politics, stopped a drunken Bokuto from mooning everyone on stage at the rehearsal dinner, and saved one of Kuroo’s younger cousins from asphyxiation by remembering his peanut allergy and snatching a cookie right out of his sticky little fingers before he could turn their wedding weekend into an episode of Grey’s Anatomy.
He’s so close now, he can see the finish line. They’re in the home stretch, on the path to the perfect, most magical wedding that Kuroo could ever hope for.
And Tsukishima has no. Goddamned. Flowers.
“I’m going to call them and check up on the order. Maybe the got the date wrong, or the address, or -”
“Nope,” Yamaguchi declares, hopping off the bed and plucking Tsukishima’s cell phone right out of his hands.
“Hey!”
“Don’t ‘hey’ me,” Yamaguchi fixes him with a stern look, not unlike the kind he would give the first years when he was the captain of their volleyball team in third year. “You’re way too stressed out. The bad vibes are going to ruin the whole wedding if you don’t take a deep breath and chill the hell out.”
Tsukishima frowns. “Are you allowed to insult my vibes on my wedding day?”
“Probably not, but I’m doing it anyways.” Yamaguchi grabs Tsukishima by the shoulders and practically shoves him out of the room. “Go take a nice long, hot, shower and relax, okay? I’ll watch for the flowers and let you know the minute they get here.”
Tsukishima sighs, but he already knows it’s a losing fight to try and change Yamaguchi’s mind. He got stubborn like that over the years. Plus, his best friend is probably right, he could use a shower.
“The minute they arrive?”
“Yes, yes,” Yamaguchi laughs, pushing Tsukishima into the bathroom. He tips his head to the side with a curious look. “I never thought you would be the kind of person to care so much about all this stuff, y’know?”
Tsukishima closes the bathroom door in his face, ignoring the muffled indignant noises from the other side.
It’s his wedding day, he gets a few free passes to be a bitch.
~*~
At some point during his shower, Yamaguchi bangs on the door and shouts that the flowers have arrived. Tsukishima practically melts in relief, letting his head fall forward and allowing himself a few peaceful moments to enjoy the pressure of hot water hitting the back of his neck and shoulders.
For a brief second there, when he heard the knocking on the door, his heart had leapt at the idea that it might be Kuroo, coming to join him. He hasn’t seen his husband-to-be since the rehearsal dinner last night, on account of both of their mothers insisting that it’s bad luck to sleep together the night before a wedding. So like a couple of teenagers, they had been forced to sleep in different rooms.
Tsukishima had tried to argue that the rule technically only applied if the people getting married were a bride and groom, and since neither of them was the bride, the curse would probably spare them. Kuroo, always the people pleaser, had just laughed amicably and promised their mother’s he wouldn’t lay eyes (nor hands) on Tsukishima until the moment he was walking towards him down the aisle.
Their mother’s had been appeased. Tsukishima, less so, which he made sure Kuroo was well aware of by pouting the entire way home from the restaurant.
He managed to keep it up all the way to his bedroom door, where he promptly forgot why he was even annoyed at Kuroo in the first place when he was pressed up against the wall and kissed so sweetly, every coherent thought flew right out of his head.
“It’s a small price to pay to keep our moms happy, don’t you think?” Kuroo murmured against his lips, reminding Tsukishima of why he was sulking. He pressed his lips in a tight line and tilted his chin away defiantly, but it only made Kuroo laugh, the low rumbling chuckle that Tsukishima felt in his chest. “Aw, come on, don’t be like that. One night apart is nothing, considering that starting tomorrow, you and I will be spending every night for the rest of our lives together.”
Even now, just the memory of how Kuroo’s eyes had twinkled with so much happiness and promise when he said those words is enough to melt Tsukishima’s insides to a puddle of goo. He always used to hate how weak Kuroo’s mushy and romantic declarations made him, but he’d be a damn liar if he said he didn’t love it, too.
And now… ‘I’m marrying Kuroo Tetsurou today.’
In the privacy of his own shower, Tsukishima allows himself a small, giddy smile as the thought floods his body with butterfly tingles, nervous and excited in a way he hasn’t been since Kuroo first flashed him that crooked, infuriatingly handsome smirk all those years ago. He can’t stop staring at that spot on his ring finger that has been reserved for Kuroo since they went on their first date.
That’s probably how it happens. That small distraction, his wandering mind, that allows him to make such a small, yet so detrimental, slip of the hand.
When he steps out of the shower, one towel wrapped around his waist, the other drying off his hair, he walks up to the fogged up mirror and wipes a stripe clean.
He blinks at his reflection.
Grabs his glasses off the counter, looks at himself. Blinks again.
Oh, yes. There’s no denying it. No matter how hard he looks, his traitorous reflection doesn’t change.
Tsukishima takes a deep inhale and screams.
~*~
“Tsukki? Hey, is everything okay in there? Open up, Tsukki, I’m worried about you!”
Unsurprisingly, in a house full of people, from an entire floor away, Yamaguchi is the first person to realize Tsukishima is having a crisis and rush to his side. Yamaguchi has always been like that, and Tsukishima is half convinced his best friend has a sixth sense for when he’s in need.
So, because it’s Yamaguchi, and only because it’s Yamaguchi, Tsukishima reaches up from his position curled up in a ball on the bathroom floor and unlocks the door.
“Tsukki?” Yamaguchi’s freckled face, wrinkled up in concern, pokes in first. Tsukishima still stands a solid head above him, but Yamaguchi’s chest and arms filled out in a way that Tsukishima is pretty sure his body isn’t even capable of, so he thankfully blocks the entire doorway when he stands there, stock-still, jaw dropped in horror. “Oh. Oh, Tsukki, what happened?”
“The wedding is cancelled,” Tsukishima informs him in as calm of a voice as he can manage, tugging Yamaguchi the rest of the way into the bathroom by his ankle and pushing the door closed behind him, all without having to move from his spot on the floor. Pretty impressive, if you ask him. “Let everyone know, tell Kuroo that I’m sorry, and just leave me here alone to wallow in misery.”
“It’s your wedding day, Tsukki, there will be no wallowing in misery,” Yamaguchi declares, grabbing Tsukishima underneath his arms and hauling him to his feet. Tsukishima doesn’t make it easy on him, either, letting all of his long limbs hang limply, a dead weight in his friend’s arms.
“Tell that to my hair.” Tsukishima points an accusing finger to the top of his head once Yamaguchi has finally managed to wrangle him into an upright position.
Yamaguchi has the good grace to wince.
Somebody’s aunty or another (it was impossible to tell who in a house full of so many people) must have left their things in the shower, and being so lost in his thoughts about the wedding, Tsukishima hadn’t noticed that he grabbed the wrong bottle.
Red hair dye.
“It’s really not that bad.”
“Not that bad?” Tsukishima shrieks and Yamaguchi winces at the shrill tone. “I’m supposed to be walking down the aisle to marry the idiot love of my life in less than four hours and I have bright red hair.” He looks in the mirror again and tugs miserably at the fiery strands.
“Should I go get Kuroo? I’m sure talking to him will make you feel better, and maybe he’ll have an idea for how to -”
“No!” Tsukishima blurts out, throat seizing up in panic. “No, you can’t - Kuroo can’t know that anything is wrong. I’ll - I’ll find a way to fix this myself, just promise me you won’t -”
There’s a knock at the bathroom door.
“Kei? Is everything okay in there, babe? I thought I heard you screaming earlier.”
Tsukishima’s wide eyes meet Yamaguchi’s in the mirror, both of them going frozen at the sound of Kuroo’s voice. “Uh, yeah, I’m fine,” Tsukishima grimaces internally at the high octave of his voice, forcing it to come out a little more normal. “I was just - soap. I got some soap in my eye, but I’m all good now.”
“Are you sure? Do you want me to come in and take a look at it for you?” The concern in Kuroo’s voice stabs Tsukishima’s gut with guilt, and the doorknob starts to rattle. “Can you please open the door for me, baby?”
Yes, Tsukishima would like to do that very much. He’d like to open this bathroom door and throw himself into Kuroo’s warm, strong embrace, and let him take care of everything - take care of Tsukishima - the way he always does.
But he can’t, not today.
“No, I can’t because - because of the curse!”
“The curse?” Kuroo laughs. “Babe, I know you don’t really believe in any of that crap. Just open the door a crack so I can make sure you’re okay.”
“I don’t want to risk it!” Tsukishima squeezes his eyes shut, feeling hot tears prickle at the back of them. “I don’t want to risk...even the tiniest thing going wrong today. I want it - I want everything to be perfect for you,” he manages to choke out. Yamaguchi makes a small sympathetic sound. “Just go make sure everything’s getting set up out back, okay? Sugawara put himself in charge of setting up all the chairs, but it’ll go much faster if you help him.”
Kuroo doesn’t sound very pleased at being shooed away and distracted with busy work, but after Tsukishima reassures him that he’s fine about a dozen more times, he finally leaves.
Tsukishima’s gaze snaps up to meet Yamaguchi’s in the mirror.
“Stall him.”
~*~
Tsukishima sits on the edge of the bathtub, knees bouncing anxiously as he waits. Finally, only a few minutes after he had sent out the ‘SOS’ text, there’s a short rap on the door.
“Tsukishima? It’s Kenma. I brought what you asked me for.”
But when he cracks the door open and tries to usher Kenma in as quickly as humanly possible, two other bodies sneak into the bathroom alongside him. Really, Tsukishima should have expected that Kenma wouldn’t come alone, it was rare to see him, Hinata, and Kageyama without one or the other these days.
“Oh,” Kenma says simply when he sees him.
“Woah!” Hinata’s jaw drops. “What did you do to your head? You look like a clown!”
Tsukishima grits his teeth, and he probably would have smacked Hinata upside the head for making such a stupid observation if Kageyama didn’t beat him to it.
“Idiot! He obviously didn’t do it on purpose.” Kageyama barks.
“That’s why you needed this,” Kenma realizes, producing an at home hair bleaching kit from the pocket of his hoodie. Tsukishima had been emphatic in his text that Kenma needed to be as discreet as possible, and that it was of the utmost importance that Kuroo not even catch a hint that something might be wrong. It was a testament of how far their friendship has come that Kenma had agreed without asking any questions.
“You dye your own hair, right?” Tsukishima tries to look just miserable enough to incur the max amount of pity. “Can you fix it?”
Kenma purses his lips. “I don’t know, this seems a little advanced for me. I only know how to lighten my hair, not do color correction, or whatever you need. I’m afraid I’d just make it worse.”
Tsukishima makes a sound akin to an animal dying and drops his head into his hands. Well, this was it. His last hope. Kenma has been dying his own hair since they were in high school, and if he can’t do it, then there’s no way that Tsukishima - who has never even touched a bottle of bleach - can do it without causing all of his hair to fall out. There’s no one left who could possibly -
“I can do it.”
Tsukishima’s head snaps up, eying Kageyama incredulously. “You?”
Kageyama shrugs. “My sister’s a hairdresser, I’ve seen her do this a hundred times.”
“That doesn’t mean you can do it,” Hinata points out.
Kageyama shrugs again. “I can’t make any promises, but I can try. Up to you, Tsukishima.”
Tsukishima tries to remember a time that Kageyama has let him down in the past, but annoyingly can’t seem to come up with a single thing. Even back in high school, when they were on the same volleyball team and would bicker with each other every day, Kageyama was nothing if not reliable. He is reluctantly comforted by Hinata’s presence in this increasingly cramped bathroom, too, since the two of them together have been known to pull off miracles before.
And Kenma, who has always been just as rational as Tsukishima, if not more, looks like he agrees with Kageyama’s plan, too.
“Well, it’s pretty unlikely that you could make this any worse.” Tsukishima gestures grandly to the top of his head. “Have at it, King.”
~*~
The good news is that Kageyama doesn’t make it any worse.
Tsukishima might argue that this isn’t much better, either, but at least his hair isn’t as glaringly vibrant as it was before.
After two rounds of bleaching, and Tsukishima’s poor virgin scalp screaming for mercy, Kageyama declared that this was all he could do for now, or else Tsukishima’s hair would probably start falling out.
It wasn’t red anymore, but the bleach had left his hair tinged with a washed out pink color, like a chewed up piece of bubblegum.
Tsukishima kind of feels like that right now - like a chewed up piece of bubblegum.
“Thanks for trying guys,” he mutters, dropping his head miserably back into his hands. “I guess this is the best it’s gonna get.” Hinata pats him awkwardly on the back while Kageyama scowls at his hands like they personally are to blame for not being able to fix Tsukishima’s hair.
Kenma, who had previously been pretty quiet throughout the whole affair, quirks a curious brow. “You’ve never really struck me as the kind of person who would care so much about something like this,” he says, mirroring Yamaguchi’s words to him earlier.
Tsukishima’s throat starts to close up again. “I don’t.”
“Then why are you so -”
“Kuroo does.”
Hinata’s face scrunches up in confusion, but Kenma’s eyes just go soft with understanding.
“He was the one who wanted this big wedding. I would have been just as happy going down to city hall and signing a few documents, but he - He always dreamed of this, and he always does so much for me, and I just -” A few frustrated tears leak out of the corners of Tsukishima’s eyes. “I just wanted to do this one thing for him. I just wanted to give him this one thing. He never asks for anything from me, and he’s so good to me, and he - He deserves to have the perfect wedding, and I - I ruined it.”
Tsukishima furiously scrubs at his eyes with the back of his hand, refusing to meet the sympathetic gazes of everyone else in the room.
“Listen, Tsukishima,” Kenma starts slowly, “I know you’re really emotional right now, but I hope you know that Kuro doesn’t see things that way at all. He does stuff for you because he loves you and wants to make you happy, because you make him happy. You don’t owe him for doing stuff he wants to do, you know?”
“I don’t even know what his favorite dessert is,” Tsukishima laments.
“What?” Kageyama frowns in confusion.
“Every time we get dessert, he orders strawberry shortcake because he knows that’s my favorite, but I have no idea what his favorite dessert is,” Tsukishima explains miserably. “Is it mint chocolate chip ice cream? Key lime pie? Tiramisu? I have no idea.”
“I’m pretty sure Kuro doesn’t care that much about -” Kenma is cut off by the sounds of some sort of commotion out in the hallway. Some shouting, a few bangs, and feet pouding up the stairs.
“Tsukki!” Yamaguchi shouts from down the hall, sounding out of breath. “Tsukki, I’m sorry, I tried to stall him, but he -”
The warning comes too late for anyone to react, and with a triumphant shout, Kuroo flings the bathroom door open. Hinata shrieks as the door nearly smacks him in the face and latches onto Kageyama’s back.
Unlike Tsukishima, Kuroo is dressed already, because why wouldn’t he be? They are supposed to be getting married in fifteen minutes, after all. He looks immaculately debonair in his black suit and deep maroon button down, his hair half-tamed and pushed back from his face to accentuate his killer jawline and molten gold eyes.
Perfect. Kuroo is perfect, and he deserves the perfect wedding and the perfect husband to stand at the altar with him, and Tsukishima currently looks like Strawberry Shortcake having a midlife crisis.
Kuroo scans the bathroom, eyebrows drawing closer and closer together in confusion as he takes in more occupants than he was clearly expecting. Finally, his eyes land on Tsukishima, sitting on the edge of the bathtub, surely looking terribly un-marry-able, dressed only in his red-stained t-shirt and boxers with pink hair and eyes still burning with tears.
“Oh, sweetheart,” Kuroo says in that honeyed voice he reserves just for Tsukishima, the one that lets Tsukishima know that everything is going to be okay now.
And Tsukishima gives up. Throws himself into Kuroo’s arms and buries his sobs into his chest, probably staining his shirt with tears and making even more of a mess of the day. Kuroo doesn’t seem to notice or care at all, securing strong arms around Tsukishima’s waist and holding him tight and murmuring reassurances into his ear and kissing the top of his horrifically pink head.
He’s distantly aware of Kenma, Hinata, and Kageyama quietly slipping out of the room and shutting the door behind them, so Tsukishima has no reservations left as he lets himself cry out the morning’s frustrations in Kuroo’s arms. He feels a lot better after only a few minutes, pulling back and sniffling pathetically. Kuroo smiles sadly at him and wipes away the traces of tears still clinging to his cheeks.
“Alright?” Kuroo asks, rubbing soothing circles into Tsukishima’s lower back. Tsukishima takes a shaky inhale, and when he releases it, he feels much calmer. He nods and Kuroo wipes his cheeks one last time before finishing with a kiss to each one.
“I’m sorry, Tetsurou. It was an accident and I - I tried to fix it, but -” Tsukishima sighs. “I ruined our wedding day.”
“Ruined our -” Kuroo laughs incredulously. “You’re kidding, right? The only problem I can see here is that I’m getting married today, and my beautiful husband is in the bathroom crying.”
“But - My hair -”
“Kei, baby, I don’t care if your hair is pink or blue or green or if you shave it all off completely! The only thing that matters to me on our wedding day is that you’re happy.” Kuroo frowns. “But you’re not, and it isn’t just about the hair, is it? Talk to me, sweetheart. Tell me why this is really making you so upset.”
Tsukishima’s bottom lip wobbles and he feels the tears threatening to spill again. “I just wanted everything to be perfect for you. You’ve been so excited planning all of this, and I know you dreamed of having this big, fairytale wedding when you were a kid, and I - You do so much for me, and I -”
Kuroo places a finger to his lips and mercifully ends his rambling. Tsukishima blinks up at him and finds Kuroo’s eyes looking as misty as his own, a soft smile tugging at his lips.
“It’s already the most perfect wedding I could ever dream of, because I’m marrying you, Kei.”
“Really?” Tsukishima asks in a small voice. Kuroo laughs wetly and hooks his arms underneath Tsukishima’s thighs, lifting him up to perch on the edge of the bathroom counter, leaning forward to rest their foreheads together.
“Really. Nothing else matters to me, not the flowers or the buffet or the balloon arch -”
“Oh, God, did the balloon arch arrive in time?”
“I don’t care about any of that stuff,” Kuroo repeats firmly, “if it’s not you walking down the aisle to spend the rest of your life with me. So your hair is pink? So what? What does it matter what we look like to everyone else?” His eyes suddenly twinkle like he’s got an idea, and he reaches over Tsukishima’s shoulder to rummage around in the medicine cabinet.
“What are you -?” Tsukishima starts to ask, but is cut off by Kuroo’s triumphant “Aha!” as he produces a pair of scissors.
He snips off the bottom half of his tie.
“There,” Kuroo smiles while Tsukishima just gapes at him dumbfoundedly. “Now we both look ridiculous. People won’t know which one of us to stare at.”
“You - That tie was expensive!”
Kuroo shrugs, unaffected. “Can’t put a price on making your husband smile, can you?”
Tsukishima realizes that for the first time all morning, he does have a helpless grin tugging at his lips. He smacks Kuroo lightly in the chest, feeling his cheeks pull up even further.
“I’m not your husband yet.”
“And what a tragedy that is.” Kuroo flashes him a winning smile full of straight, white teeth. “Shall we go and remedy that now, hm?”
Tsukishima nods and throws his arms around Kuroo’s neck, surprising both of them with the force of it, crushing them together and burying his face in Kuroo’s shoulder, just for a few seconds more. Kuroo holds him and hums contentedly, and Tsukishima could spend the rest of his life here, with Kuroo.
And he will.
“Tetsurou?”
“Hm?”
“What’s your favorite dessert?”
“Anything, as long as I’m eating it with you.”