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Yamaguchi had always been more expressive online.
In real life, he wasn't as quiet as Kenma or as socially awkward as Kageyama but he was still shy. It took him months to speak up more with his team. But online, it only took Yamaguchi a few days to a week. And when he did, his online friends were greeted by the boy’s puppy-like energy. There was something about talking through the internet that helped him grow out of his shell a little more.
It was only natural that Yamaguchi ended up making TikToks.
At first, he only downloaded the app because his online friends kept sending him links to TikToks and having to open it up on Chrome became a chore. Then, his friends started to do group transition videos (even though they all lived in different countries) and would ask him to send in his part. It slowly escalated to Yamaguchi participating in trends and dances on his own account.
Yamaguchi Tadashi, the volleyball player, was a bit of a wallflower. Don’t get him wrong, he loved the game and he loved his team but he didn’t really feel like he stood out yet so he felt more comfortable watching from the sidelines. Slowly, with every practice, his skills and confidence grew bit by bit. His itch to be on the court more often grows every time he hit a good serve.
Yamaguchi Tadashi, the TikTok creator, was a different story. In the comfort of his own room, Yamaguchi liked to let loose a little. His mother was used to walking in on him dancing with his headphones on, singing along to Youtube videos or excitedly talking to his online friends for hours, laughing loud enough to be heard from outside his door. his TikToks ended up radiating the same type of carefree energy that he usually had once he got home from school.
The freckled boy wasn’t a completely different person. No, in fact, he was just as anxious as he was when he was in school. His small following noticed the boy’s tendency to ramble or backtrack whenever he got nervous in a video and it just built his soft boy image more. However, they also noticed his snark (which was inevitable when you were Tsukishima Kei’s best friend), which made some of his videos just a little more interesting.
Soon enough, his videos started getting better and better as he got the hang of it. He bought a tripod instead of leaning his phone against a stack of books. He decorated his room by adding a few plants and lights (including one ring light) and he started dabbling in CapCut. Occasionally, he'd even collab with other small TikTokers.
Yamaguchi's first viral video was of him doing a little dance that he saw while scrolling through TikTok during lunch. It was stuck in his head all the way home so when he finally got to his room, he didn't bother getting dressed and decided to start recording in his volleyball attire.
After a few (multiple) tries, he ended up uploading the first take that he had recorded and set his phone down to go and take a shower. It was exam season so he avoided going on TikTok too much, temporarily muting his social media notifications til exams were over
Yamaguchi didn’t think much of it, he was too busy balancing exams, volleyball, and the anxiety that came with both of them. It wasn't until two days later that Tsukishima brought it up.
“You know that dance video you posted? the most recent one?”
“Yeah?”
“Nii-san sent it to me.”
“Oh? That's… weird. But I guess it happens in a small town like ours. Did he find me or follow me or something?”
“You were on his 'For You' page. Did you know you got over twenty thousand views on that?”
“WHAT?!”
Yamaguchi nearly dropped his meat bun in the process of grabbing his phone out of his bag. Tsukishima looked at his best friend with amusement as the pinch server opened up the app and noticed the bustling inbox.
Yamaguchi turned red as he remembered how he had some pretty cringe-worthy content from a long time ago and screamed, scrolling down as far as he could to delete them.
Laughing at the smaller man, Tsukishima called him a strawberry while placing a hand on Yamaguchi’s shoulder to calm him down. Both boys were impressed that Yamaguchi went from a few hundred followers to a few thousand followers in only two days.
Though, Tsukishima wasn’t too surprised. He always knew that Yamaguchi thrived on the internet. He should know, after all. He was the one that always made sure his best friend never got cyberbullied or ended up on the wrong side of the internet.
Later that day, Yamaguchi and Tsukishima popped on a call together to go through Yamaguchi’s account and made sure he didn’t have any personal information lying around in his captions, comments or videos. Tsukishima argued that he should take down the videos of him in his volleyball uniform so that people won’t be able to know which school he went to, but Yamaguchi claimed that even if he did, it probably won’t be too hard to find him since the names of all the members of Karasuno's VBC were on Google (they checked).
However, Yamaguchi eventually gave in to Tsukishima’s request. He knew that his best friend was just worried. Plus, he didn’t want his classmates finding his account anyway.
After that video, both boys figured it was a one-hit wonder type of moment since his views went down and plateaued for a while. It didn’t bother either of them. If anything, Yamaguchi was a little (extremely) overwhelmed by the flood of new followers in those few days so when it started to slow down, he calmed down again and was able to post the videos he enjoyed making without overthinking.
Then, another one of his videos blew up.
Then another.
And even one from something he posted months ago suddenly started gaining more traction.
Tsukishima got more protective and frown-y to the point that Yamaguchi's online friends started teasing him whenever he’d join the call, calling him “Yamaguchi’s guardian angel”. In all honesty, Yamaguchi did appreciate his best friend for his protectiveness. Tsukishima had access to his account so he would go in to delete any hateful comments (not that there were many) before Yamaguchi got to see them.
(He couldn't prove it, but Yamaguchi was almost a 100% sure that Tsukishima also deleted some of the more 'simp-like’ comments.)
(Deciding to test his theory, Yamaguchi uploaded a video of him dancing in a skirt and watched as comments beyond the simple “that’s so cute” or “you’re adorable” seemed to disappear.)
(Yamaguchi called him out on it on the way to school and enjoyed the way it made Tsukishima blush. Then immediately regretting it when the taller boy turned it back to him by asking him about the skirt.)
In a few months, his followers hit 90k. His online friends were a little baffled at how their sweet little Yamaguchi became a content creator while also balancing volleyball and high school.
Speaking of volleyball and high school, Yamaguchi was both pleased and terrified that, his team was not aware of his new-found TikTok popularity. Both because it was a little embarrassing but also he worried that they knew about it but didn't bring it up.
Especially since he had been approached by it in the halls three different times.
When prompted again about his time management, Yamaguchi explained how he tended to record videos when he felt like it. Plus, when he did feel like he was in the mood to record, he would record a lot of various types of videos. He has a decent amount of prepared videos in his drafts to post daily and last until his next burst of inspiration. That way he was able to focus on school and volleyball while also uploading regularly. It helped that Yamaguchi still saw it as a hobby so he never felt compelled to stick by a certain regiment.
Occasionally, Yamaguchi would post storytimes. Sometimes it would be about volleyball, other times it would be about school and very rarely he would talk about something personal. His followers were quick to pick up a common denominator; his best friend.
Yamaguchi never referred to him by name, but Tsukishima came up in almost all of the storytimes. they wanted to see who this “tall, cool, intelligent, protective, talented, volleyball-playing best friend” was.
It wasn't like they were alone in that sentiment. Yamaguchi wanted to show them Tsukishima as well. So, when he found out that Tsukishima was never against the idea, he immediately asked the taller boy to do a dance with him. The blonde immediately took back his words and started to walk away.
It took a lot of convincing, but they eventually agreed on just posting one of Yamaguchi’s bloopers that featured Tsukishima in it from a few weeks prior. In it, Yamaguchi was about to record a short video in the gym while their team was still in the club room when his phone fell off the bench. The mic captured him laughing as he picked it back up and panned to the side to show Tsukishima standing there, waiting for Yamaguchi to finish up.
The comments immediately started flooding in and this time, Tsukishima wasn’t online to delete them.
@izuizumi: YAMA YOU DIDNT TELL US HE WAS HOT
@mylittlemeowmeow: … tall man… with glasses… and headphones… and plays a sport…
@silversimp: THIGHS
@lgbtiddies: i smell something fruity in the air
@hoothoot: I WANT HIM TO BE MY BEST FRIEND
@tinynblonde: think about,,,, the,,, height difference yall,,,, THE HEIGHT DIFFERENCE
@ewewewew: tsukki? help that’s such a cute fucking name
Yamaguchi was very pleased that his followers saw Tsukishima the way he did. Tsukishima on the other hand, was mortified.
“This is borderline sexual harassment, Yamaguchi,” Tsukishima muttered as he went through the comments beside Yamaguchi as they laid in his bed. He scrolled even furthur down and his eyes went wide. “Never mind, this is sexual harassment. If I see one more comment about my thighs, I will disable them.”
Yamaguchi turned his head to look at his best friend, ignoring how close their faces were. “Gomen, Tsukki. I'll disable it myself, don’t worry.”
Tsukishima turned his head towards Yamaguchi and went red when he saw how close he was to the smaller boy. Not to mention, the wide and honest eyes he found staring back at his own made his heart flutter in a way he would never admit. Tsukishima flushed and turned back to his phone, claiming that he didn’t care and that Yamaguchi didn’t need to do that. (Yamaguchi still did, anyway).
Despite that (and Yamaguchi's strongly worded comment about not objectifying his best friend), his followers wanted more of the 'tall and hot blonde'. However, his best friend absolutely refused to participate in any dance, trend, or “anything else you geeks do”.
Despite all that, no matter how cold and collected Tsukishima was, even he wasn’t invulnerable to Yamaguchi's pouting. Especially if he did it almost every time they met up. Tsukishima had no choice. He eventually gave in, but still refused to do anything embarrassing for a video.
After some back and forth, they decided on posting an existing video of him from Yamaguchi's gallery since Yamaguchi had a habit of taking random videos of his friends so there was bound to be something in there.
After scrolling through Yamaguchi's gallery for a while, something caught Tsukishima’s eye. He pointed to a thumbnail of him sleeping and saw Yamaguchi blushed from the corner of his eye as he clicked on the video.
It was a video of Tsukishima asleep in Yamaguchi’s bed after he slept over during one of their late night study session. It was obvious that Tsukishima was deep asleep. The sunlight and wind coming through the window emphasised the softness of his hair. His glasses were on the windowstill so half of his face was nestled into the pillow. After a few seconds, Yamaguchi's hand came into frame and softly combed through Tsukishima’s hair. Both boys were red as they watched what was on the screen, Yamaguchi was so sure that his ears were going to melt off.
“I- I…” Yamaguchi stuttered, words failing to explain what they just saw.
“… Post that one.”
“… What?”
“Post that video.”
Before Yamaguchi could process the request, Tsukishima turned away from Yamaguchi and tucked the blanket around himself. Yamaguchi recognised it as Tsukishima’s ‘I’m going to take a nap now’ position. He could see Tsukishima’s red ear poke out of the edge of the blanket and turned his attention back to the screen.
Deciding to not question Tsukishima's decision, Yamaguchi started to set the video up to be posted and hyper fixated on watching for any parts he may have to trim in order to stop himself from throwing the phone down and spooning his best friend for being so cute. After watching the video over and over a few times, Yamaguchi picked a song to add in the background and wrote a short caption before posting it.
@yamayama 🍓|| by the way, his name is tsukishima. only i get to call him tsukki ;) #fyp #besties
@anxietypersonified: YAMA WHAT IS THIS WHATS GOING ON
@akisimp: w tf why is this so soft and precious what the fuck
@user28394271: YAMA?!?!?!!?
@sunshinesunset: oo, he’s possessive 👀
@flyingorange: BITCH REALLY SAID #BESTIES
@redwhiskers: man, today is a good day to be gay
Yamaguchi put his phone on focus mode, which muted his TikTok notifications but allowed messages and calls to go through. Yawning, the dancer got out of bed so that he could read beside Tsukishima while he slept. While picking out a book, Yamaguchi's phone pinged really loudly and he silently dashed over to the bed to frantically put it on silent mode. Peeking over at Tsukki to confirm that he was still asleep, Yamaguchi sighed with relief and checked the message.
sugawara-san : hey, yamaguchi! could you call me whenever you’re available? ive got a question about your latest tiktok video…
sugawara-san: before you start panicking, don’t! if you don’t want to talk about it either, we don’t have to!
Yamaguchi definitely panicked. There he was, thinking that no one on his team knew about his videos when it turned out that his own senpai watched his videos, and he had posted a video with one of his teammates in his bed .
If it weren’t for Tsukishima sleeping peacefully in his bed, Yamaguchi would have dived under the covers and screamed. Unfortunately, the bed was occupied, which meant that Yamaguchi had to handle the situation. He let Suga know that he’d call him in a few minutes, then proceeded to find his coat and head out the door, after leaving Tsukishima a note.
Once he walked out his front door, he pressed the call button on Suga’s contact information and felt his heart rate spike.
Suga picked up. Oh god-
“I-”
“Yamaguchi! Hi! I'm sorry, were you busy?”
“No, no. I'm just, uh, on a walk right now.” Totally not because my best friend is asleep in my bed and I didn’t want to wake him up.
“Nice, nice. Well, I'm just gonna cut to the chase and ask, is there something going on between you and Tsukishima?”
Yamaguchi blushed again. He felt like he blushes so much that he probably had more blood in his face than he had in the rest of his body at this point. Rubbing his neck and looking at the sky, Yamaguchi replied with a soft “...no”.
“But you want to, don’t you?”
Sighing, he nodded. Then he remembered Suga couldn’t see him, so he hummed in agreement. Out of all his senpais, Suga had always been the most perceptive of them all. In fact, he was the second most perceptive one on the team when it came to Yamaguchi, with Tsukishima (of course) taking the first spot.
“Would you like to talk about it?”
“I… I don’t think so. I think we both are aware of each other’s feelings.”
“I figured. So what’s stopping you guys from making it official?”
Yamaguchi had to pause for a moment to think of his answer. He and Tsukishima had always been there for each other, and they were damn sure that they’d continue to be there for each other in the future.
Hinata and Kageyama may have that goal where they aim to go to the top of the world together, but Yamaguchi and Tsukishima have always planned to go against the world together. He knows that he won’t get rejected if he did confess, but he also knew it wasn’t the right time.
“I think Tsukki and I have a lot more growing to do. We've changed a lot since middle school, but we still have more to go. And for that to happen, we need to do most of it on our own. When we do officially go out, I have a feeling we’d tell people we’ve been together since we were kids. Besides, it’s not like either of us will date. Tsukki’s the one for me, he had always been the only one.”
It was silent on the other end and Yamaguchi nearly started to freak out from embarrassment. Thankfully, Suga didn’t leave him hanging for too long.
“...Wow, Yamaguchi. And here I was thinking I'd be your amazing senpai and help you guys get together, but it turns out you guys already have it all figured out. That was… That was so sweet and… You definitely fit your ‘soft boi’ role… And…”
“Suga-san… Are… Are you crying?”
“NO! It’s just… The wifi’s weird, that’s all.” Based on that voice crack, Yamaguchi didn’t believe him. “Anyway, I'm so proud of you Yamaguchi. Not just for this, but for growing so much. I don’t think you know this because I don’t use my name on social media, but I’ve been following your account since your first viral video. I’ve been wanting to bring it up but, uh, I kept forgetting to. Seeing you slowly grow more confident on screen and on the court makes me so proud. Keep it going and I can see you wearing the #1 jersey in 2 years.”
Yamaguchi paused in his steps. He was aware that he had changed since coming to Karasuno, but knowing his senpai had been watching him this whole time and was proud of him… It filled him with warmth. Yamaguchi looked to the ground and felt a smile grow on his face as his eyes started to water.
“Wow, thank you Suga-san. Now you’re going to make me cry.”
Suga chuckled and Yamaguchi could hear him sniffle on the other end. He reminded Yamaguchi that it was getting dark and that he should probably head home. Yamaguchi wiped his tears and listened to his senpai, turning around to make the walk back home and ending the call with suga.
A few seconds after the call ended, his phone vibrated.
sugawara-san: text me when you’re home! if i don’t hear from you in 20 minutes, you’re doing extra laps tomorrow!
sugawara-san: but be safe, don’t try to run across any roads.
sugawara-san: and watch out for anyone suspicious!
sugawara-san: (p.s. you should totally do a tiktok dance with your other half)
sugawara-san: (p.p.s. ask him when he’s sleepy. that’s how i got daichi to let us have that pizza party that one time.)
Sugawara Koushi really was the best senpai.
When Yamaguchi got home, he threw his coat over the couch and went up to the bathroom to brush his teeth and get ready for bed. As he went into his room to get a new change of clothes, he peeked over at Tsukishima.
The latter was curled on his side of the bed with the blanket only covering half his back. His glasses were on the windowsill, which meant that he had woken up at some point to remove them. Yamaguchi held a soft smile as he went up to adjust Tsukishima’s blanket before going to take his shower.
After getting cleaned up, Yamaguchi turned off all the lights in the room and crawled into bed with Tsukishima. Usually he’d just lay beside him and fall asleep but today, he felt a little bit more affectionate. Lifting the blanket, Yamaguchi wrapped his arms around the other boy and nuzzled his face into his back. It wasn't the first time they cuddled, but Yamaguchi was still surprised when Tsukishima wrapped his arms around Yamaguchi’s. Mainly because he thought Tsukishima was still asleep.
“Nngn… T’dashi?”
“Gomen, Tsukki. Did I wake you up?”
“…’es… Where’d you go?”
“Suga-san called me and I took it outside. It’s nothing important, don’t worry.”
“Mmm… ‘kay…”
Yamaguchi felt Tsukishima snuggle up closer to him. There was almost nothing Yamaguchi loved more than a sleepy Tsukishima. His best friend hated sleeping cold so he usually had two blankets on his own bed. But whenever he would sleep beside Yamaguchi, he forgoes one of the blankets for the body heat of having Yamaguchi beside him.
Yamaguchi could tell that Tsukishima was about to fall back asleep and remembered what Suga told him. He smiled with a slightly evil glint in his eyes as he adjusted himself so that he could free one of his arms and grab something from under his pillow.
“Tsukki?”
“...?”
“Could you sleep over tomorrow?”
“Mm… yea, Tadashi…”
“And could you help me cook breakfast in the morning?”
“….mmmkay, T’dashi…”
“And do a tiktok dance video with me?”
“… S’re Dashi…”
Yamaguchi grinned evilly as he stopped the recording he secretly took on his phone. He’d ask Tsukishima again in the morning when Tsukishima was completely awake. He wouldn’t force Tsukishima if he was vehemently against the idea, but if he wasn’t, Yamaguchi knew that having that recording would help. He placed the phone on his bedside table and went back to cuddling.
“No.”
“Pleaaaseeee Tsukkiiiiiii~”
Tsukishima glared at the recording on Yamaguchi's phone with disgust. He preferred pretending that the soft side that came out when he was sleepy never truly existed and here he was, watching a recording of the said softness.
“I can't believe you asked me this when I was barely awake.”
“Gomen, Tsukki.”
Tsukishima could still believe it, though. Yamaguchi was not all sweet and innocent. Not after that many years they spent with each other, at least.
Yamaguchi stared at the other’s frowning face and sighed. “Kei,” he started and reached across the breakfast table to place his hand above Tsukishima’s.
“If you're actually uncomfortable with it, I won't force you to do it. I'm sorry that I've been very persistent about this. I guess I just watched too many TikToks of couples dancing and kinda wished we did one too.''
Yamaguchi was so focused on conveying the sincerity in his words that he didn't notice his slip up until after he finished. Once he did, his eyes widened slightly and he started to pull his hand away.
“I'll do it.” Tsukishima turned his hand upward, grabbing Yamaguchi's hand and stopped him from pulling away.
“Wha- No, no! It’s okay Tsu-”
“I didn't want to do it before because I only saw it as something embarrassing and I thought you only wanted me to do it with you the same way you'd want any other friends to do it with you. But if it means a little more than that, then I want to do it.”
Yamaguchi grinned and nodded, picking up his phone and scrolling through his TikTok favourites at a swift speed to find something they could both do. He started adding more and more TikToks to an album for them to look through together later. Tsukishima sighed and went back to his cereal to hide his soft smile at how excited Yamaguchi was.
“By the way, I refuse to do anything remotely close to a thirst trap.”
Yamaguchi frowned as he reluctantly started to remove half of the videos from the album.
The next morning, Suga and Daichi were about to reach the gym when Suga’s phone vibrated. He pulled his phone out of his pocket while Daichi dug through his sports bag for the key to the gym.
Suga was surprised to see a notification from his Internet-popular kouhai because he knew that Yamaguchi tended to post his videos in the afternoon. (Because, of course Suga had his post notifications on for Yamaguchi). In fact, he had notifications turned on for all of his kouhais that he stumbled across on that app.
Noticing that Daichi was still opening the door, he clicked on the pop up and let the app open. He was incredibly surprised to see Tsukishima on screen with Yamaguchi, until he remembered the advice he gave the pinch server. He didn't expect Tsukishima to agree that fast. Those two were an enigma indeed.
Suga let the video play and snorted out a laugh by the end of it. Yamaguchi was dancing at his regular energy level while Tsukishima seemed to be doing the bare minimum. But at least Suga could see that he was still trying. If Yamaguchi was at 90%, Tsukishima would be at 30%.
Near the end, Tsukishima tried to walk off but Yamaguchi dashed off to grab him back in. The taller man stumbled as the shorter one dragged him back into frame, making Suga laugh even harder as he watched the video for a second time.
“What are you laughing at?” Daichi asked, twisting the key away from the lock.
“Nothing... Nothing...”
Suga paused the video and put his phone down to change his shoes. When he picked his phone back up, the video was paused on Tsukishima getting dragged back into frame. He grinned again.
“You know, Suga. One would think that you're getting messages from a significant other by the way you're smiling.”
“Hey!”
Daichi chuckled and walked into the gym with Suga tailing right behind him. A spark suddenly appeared in Suga's eyes as he stared at the back of his co-captain’s head.
“Hey Daichi, have you heard of TikTok?”