Chapter Text
When Hinata dragged Yamaguchi away from his usual lunch spot, where he was waiting for Tsukki of course, it was unexpected to say the least. Nice, but unexpected. They didn’t usually hang out in school, what with their best friends hating each other and all, so the thought of spending lunch together was an odd one.
An even odder thought was the idea of Hinata spending lunch away from Kageyama. In school, the pair were practically inseparable and Yamaguchi hadn’t had a chance to see his friend in weeks.
Well, other than when they’d argued of course.
Oh.
Oooh.
Yamaguchi resisted the urge to roll his eyes as the angry little red head marched him around the school to a shady benched area surrounded by maple trees.
They sat in silence as Hinata ate his lunch, Yamaguchi picking at his and looking at the other through the corner of his eye. He’d never seen anyone eat rice balls so aggressively before, it was kind of impressive if he was honest. After a good ten minutes, Hinata leaned back onto a tree growing behind the bench and grumbled something about ‘stupid volleyball heads’ before turning to Yamaguchi.
“Yamaguchi?” he whined, pouting like Yamaguchi had seen Natsu do far too many times, “Why are our friends complete idiots?”
“Hey, Tsukki isn’t an idiot!” Hinata stared at him blankly, and Yamaguchi sighed in defeat, “I dunno, man. What happened?”
And so began Hinata’s great rant on all the mistakes Kageyama had made, which boiled down to one thing – Kageyama had said he prefers Natsu to Hinata.
“Well no he’s never said that he prefers her. But he compliments her all the time. You know what the last compliment he gave me was? ‘Wow those are good volleyball shoes, where are they from?’” Hinata was frantic eyed, his face pressed close to Yamaguchi’s as he whispered, “My shoes, Yamaguchi.”
Yamaguchi pushed Hinata away, muttering about personal space and turning to look around the area. Glancing towards the entrance, he made eye contact with a seething Kageyama, glaring directly at him. Yamaguchi tilted his head in confusion, but just before he could call out to the setter, he turned and practically sprinted away, leaving Yamaguchi to roll his eyes and turn back to the over excitable Hinata. This almost-couple will be the death of him, he’s sure of it.
Looking at Hinata, who’s strewn dramatically across the bench, whining about the unfortunate cuteness of his younger sister, Yamaguchi is unable to do anything but roll his eyes and flick the other boy’s head.
“There’s no way that Kageyama prefers Natsu to you. Just talk to him. C’mon, it’s nearly the end of lunch.”
Hinata nodded in response, looking to Yamaguchi as if he knew all the answers to the universe.
“Thanks Yamaguchi! I’ll buy you some French Fries after school!”
Yamaguchi simply beamed in response.
Staring down at his iPod, Tsukishima slouched against the wall of the gym, picking at his spare apple bunnies. His mum had packed extra today because she knew how much Yamaguchi enjoyed them. She may as well have not bothered.
He scowled down at them before slamming the lid back onto the bento box and surveying the area, unable to stop his smirk as he saw Kageyama skulking in his general direction. Pulling his headphones off, Tsukishima waited until Kageyama came closer before calling out:
“Why’re you all alone, King? Another fight with the Little Queen?”
He didn’t expect the furious look in Kageyama’s eye, and he definitely didn’t expect the calm and collected manner he replied with.
“No. Hinata’s just a bit busy making out with your boyfriend.”
Tsukishima frowned, “What?”
“In the maple trees. I saw them kissing.”
He could feel his hands shaking. Coughing away the lump in his throat, Tsukishima attempted a laugh but it didn’t sound quite right, even to him. “Yamaguchi can kiss whoever he likes, it’s not like he’s seeing anyone.” Tightening his fists, Tsukishima couldn’t resist the spite he spat into the rest of his words, “Shame for you though, we all know about your big crush on Hinata.”
Kageyama scowled at Tsukishima and stormed away, and the other teen tried to pretend he couldn’t feel the prickling behind his eyes.
Yamaguchi frowned at his hand, picking at a stray strand on his jumper. Tsukishima hadn’t so much as looked at him since he returned; he'd simply continued listening to whatever song was currently playing. Probably Taylor Swift, Yamaguchi huffed, then he frowned slightly, it probably was, actually. The blond teen had a serious obsession with her going on at this point.
He could feel Tsukki’s eyes on him as he walked, but almost didn’t want to give the other the satisfaction of looking at him. His turning was coming up soon, so he slowed his walk down, hoping Tsukishima would match it. He did, Yamaguchi’s heart swelled.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Tsukki! Do you want to have lunch together?”
“I’ve made plans with someone else.” The line was blunt, and bored, sounding more robotic that Tsukishima ever had before.
Yamaguchi stared at the teen before him, unsure quite what to say. In their entire schooling career, Tsukki had never missed a lunch with him before.
“Oh, okay Tsukki.” He knew he sounded dejected, and if he was honest Yamaguchi didn’t care to cover it up.
“I mean if you’re going to abandon me again like you did today, I may as well just make other plans instead.”
So that’s what this was about, Yamaguchi felt a twinge of anger inside himself. The blond was acting like a child. He should say something, he should tell Tsukishima that he was acting petulant.
He nodded.
Tsukishima’s frown seemed to deepen, he rolled his eyes and looked off towards his home. He was the master of acting like he had somewhere he’d rather be. Yamaguchi could feel his patience wearing thin, he was suddenly reminded of the training camp, he had to say something, he really did.
“It’s pathetic if you think I only have you to hang around with. I don’t want to be left waiting if you’re not even going to bother coming along, Yamaguchi. If you don’t want to hang around with me, then don’t.” Tsukishima scoffed.
“Fine, Tsukk- Tsukishima. I won’t.” With that he turned down his street, and left Tsukishima behind him. He couldn’t tell if he regretted it or not.
The silence surrounding Yamaguchi and Hinata was not a comfortable one. Both of them were furious, fuming at their respective crushes, and not quite able to voice their frustrations to the other.
Hell, Yamaguchi didn’t even know if he had a real reason for his anger.
Tsukishima was being rude? Tsukishima was being spiteful? They all sounded so petty, and Yamaguchi almost regretted storming off the way he did. But no, he wouldn’t give in. Yamaguchi wasn’t a swearing kind of guy, but Tsukishima was being a dick, quite frankly.
He looked at Hinata, and felt his hear tug a little. He looked exhausted, deep purple bags and a set of bloodshot eyes to match making him look as though he was always seconds away from bursting into tears. He may have been, actually.
“Do you, uh,” Yamaguchi steeled himself, unsure where the conversation may turn, “do you want to talk about it.”
There was a sigh from his left, and he saw from the corner of his eye as Hinata pulled his knees up onto the bench and rested his chin on them.
“I asked him straight out, if he liked her more than me, I mean.” Hinata spoke quietly, his voice muffled slightly by his knees, “And he didn’t even speak to me, so I st-stopped him leaving.” A shudder, and the smaller teen buried his face for a second, before looking back up, “And it was really quiet. A-And he, he didn’t say anything and and I-” Yamaguchi found himself rubbing circles on Hinata’s back, attempting to calm the shaking boy down enough that he could speak. “I kissed him.”
Yamaguchi’s hand stopped, he could hardly believe what Hinata had told him. If he kissed Kageyama, it was unlikely that the setter had rejected him. It was clear to anyone with eyes that Kageyama was head over heels for Hinata.
“What happened?” His voice broke slightly from lack of use.
“He- he pushed me to the ground.” Hinata looked directly at Yamaguchi and he felt his heart break, tears were streaming down the ginger’s red, puffy face, “He told me I was disgusting and shou-should be ashamed of myself and then he just,” Hinata choked slightly, wiping snot away on his sleeve, “and then he just ran.”
He fully broke at that point, wailing into the empty alcove and shaking as Yamaguchi hugged him silently.
There was no way that Kageyama could think that way, Yamaguchi had seen the way Kageyama looked at Hinata. Hell, Tsukishima had seen the way Kageyama looked at Hinata, and if he didn’t pick up on Yamaguchi’s crush on him, he didn’t pick up on anything - the boy was oblivious.
There must have been some mistake, but Yamaguchi had no idea what to do about it.
Tsukishima Kei was a dirty liar. He really was. At least he knew he was a liar though, and had accepted his fate as the dirty liar he was.
He shouldn’t have snapped at Yamaguchi the way that he did, if he hadn’t he wouldn’t be sitting alone between the gym and a bin watching ‘The Land Before Time III’ on his iPad. He kept telling himself there was no shame in his current situation, and if he wanted to hang around with someone other than Yamaguchi he’d just have to go find one of the many drones in his classes.
But as already iterated: Tsukishima Kei was a dirty liar.
Practise was awkward to say the least, none of the team knew quite what had gone on, but judging from Kageyama’s steely gaze and Hinata’s refusal to go anywhere near him they were all certain the Freak Duo had had another one of their tiffs.
Yamaguchi felt disorientated the entire time, the growing distance between him and Tsukishima left him confused and out of place. It had only been a day but the separation was already taking its toll on him
He wasn’t used to being angry at Tsukki, it just wasn’t what he did. He was kind of starting to worry that Hinata was rubbing off on him.
That was when Yamaguchi heard a loud thump, a yell, and the sudden silence of everyone in the gym stopping what they were doing. He turned around to see Hinata on the floor, Tsukishima stood about a foot away from him, arms raised in the spiking position, and Kageyama beginning to run towards the fallen middle blocker. A stray volleyball rolled away, knocking Yamaguchi's foot on the rebound.
It was as Hinata began to push himself up from the ground that Kageyama looked at Yamaguchi and stopped, turning away to glare in the general direction of the windows. Weird.
“You did that on purpose!” Hinata yelled out, jumping up and away from where Sugawara was attempting to fix his bloodied nose.
Tsukishima simply tutted, turning away to grab another ball.
“I saw you, you did it on purpose! Apologise!”
The whole gym was staring at the pair by now, sucked in by the drama revolving around them. Sugawara was pulling Hinata back, asking him to calm down as Asahi went to grab more tissues, but the shorter teen wouldn’t listen to him.
Tsukishima had spun around to stare at Hinata once more, watching Sugawara pull him back with an incredulous look on his face.
“Shouldn’t it be your boyfriend helping you?”
“Kageyama isn’t my boyfriend! Shut up!”
“I meant Yamaguchi.”
Tsukishima stared at Hinata, Hinata stared at Tsukishima, Yamaguchi stared at Kageyama, and the rest of the gym, well they were staring at Yamaguchi.
He could feel his face heating up at the attention. He ducked his head and rubbed the back of his neck, beginning to mumble out a response.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Hinata all but yelled. He looked nervous, his eyes flickering over to where Kageyama stood glaring down Yamaguchi. His nose had stopped bleeding now, the track marks still covering his face and soaking his shirt in blood.
The entire situation was a mess, and Yamaguchi’s head hurt from trying to figure it out. Where on earth had Tsukishima gotten the idea Yamaguchi was dating Hinata. It was absurd. For a start, Hinata was clearly in love with Kageyama, and when had Yamaguchi ever shown a single bit of attraction towards Hinata.
“I saw you both kissing.”
Kageyama’s voice was quiet, but it cut through the entire room easily, slicing through the silence and straight into Yamaguchi’s heart.
Him and Hinata kissing.
Kissing.
Tsukishima thought he’d kissed Hinata.
All this time, was Tsukki jealous?
Yamaguchi was vaguely aware of Daichi shepherding the rest of the team out of the gym, but his mind was focused on his last thought. There was no way that Tsukki could have been jealous, he’s never shown the slightest bit of interest in Yamaguchi.
He couldn’t have even thought he’d kissed Hinata.
But he did. And he could.
It explained everything.
He looked up and caught eyes with Hinata, who was looking at him in shock. Both of them clearly had no idea what was going on.
“I never – we never kissed.” Yamaguchi said, his voice resonating around the empty gym.
That was all it took apparently. Kageyama sprinted across the room, grabbing Hinata and dragging him off to who knows where as Tsukishima and Yamaguchi stood, facing one another silently, unsure how to proceed.
“Sorry if I ruined your chances.” The first words came from Tsukishima. He’d finally moved from his spot besides the net and was slouching towards a bench on the other side of the hall.
“Chances?” Yamaguchi whispered in response. He was slowly following Tsukishima, moving to perch besides him on the bench.
“Angry Volleyball is probably going to confess his undying love for Small Volleyball, and they’ll fall into each other’s arms and fill the gym with their Volleybabies.”
“Yeah…” Yamaguchi wasn’t entirely sure where Tsukishima was going with all of this, but he had a feeling that if he allowed him to continue everything could carry on the way it had before.
Tsukishima was looking at him out of the corner of his eye. “Well now you’ve lost your boyfriend.”
Yamaguchi stared at Tsukishima, then snorted, buckling forwards over his knees. He could barely control his laughter at the idea of Hinata, of all people, being his boyfriend. “I thought we’d gone over this Tsukki!” he choked out, “Hinata and I aren’t dating! I’ve been giving him advice about Kageyama, he’s practically inept.”
He was still giggling away as Tsukishima muttered out an ‘oh’ in response. A large grin etched into his face, he leaned back against the wall and turned towards Tsukki once more. Voices in the back of his head telling him again and again to confess confess confess.
“Let’s go to McDonalds Yamaguchi. You can have my soggy french fries.”
Yamaguchi shook off the voices and nodded to Tsukishima. That was as close to an apology as he’d get, and actually, he was alright with that.
“Okay, Tsukki!”
As they left the gym, bags thrown over their shoulder, Yamaguchi rambling into Tsukishima’s ear as the other nodded along, they saw Kageyama and Hinata walking across the school grounds, hands entwined.
Looking at their matching blushes and grins, Yamaguchi wondered if he should confess. But as Tsukki handed him the other’s scarf, and mumbled something about how easily Yamaguchi catches colds, he felt that for now, this was good.