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It was terrifying how fast someone’s whole world could change.
When Yamaguchi left after-school practice that evening, hand intertwined with Tsukishima’s, he was smiling, waving them off with a promise of seeing them tomorrow as Tsukishima, ever his grumpy counterpart, quietly tugged at his hand towards the door, no doubt anxious to get home and pass out. It’d been a hard day of practice; they had another practice match against Seijoh soon, and Ukai needed to make sure they were ready.
He wasn’t at practice the next morning. Tsukishima was one of the last to arrive, even grumpier than usual. He was preoccupied with his phone during all of their breaks, frowning hard at the screen. After the first twenty minutes of practice, he told them that Yamaguchi probably wouldn’t be coming; he wasn’t even answering his texts.
They held out hope that he’d slept in and would be there at after-school practice. They had no such luck. Tsukishima was downright sour, snapping easily at all of them, frown never leaving his face. He’d glare at his phone, but never picked it up. Was he really that worked up over Yamaguchi not texting him?
That wasn’t it, Keishin learned after overhearing him whispering to Yachi. His kids weren’t as quiet as they thought they were. Tsukishima was one of the few who was actually good at whispering, but Yachi’s voice still found his ears, though thankfully, nobody else heard her.
“He blocked you?,” she echoed, worry falling once again upon her face, a look she wore all too often. “But why?”
“I don’t know.” Keishin had to strain his ears to hear the venomous words Tsukishima spat. “I texted him in between classes and when I went to check on him at lunch, the message wouldn’t send. All I got was a blocked number error notification. He didn’t even respond to me first!”
Worry gnawed at Keishin’s gut at the words. He’d thought Yamaguchi was sick, perhaps, or too tired, but if he blocked Tsukishima’s number, there had to be something going on with him. An awful feeling that something was terribly wrong crept up his spine.
He was right. Of all the times he was right, it had to be this time.
A loud ‘ahem’ interrupted their practice about half an hour in. There, at the gym doors, stood a stern looking woman with dark brown, almost green hair held back in a professional bun. Behind her, in a hoodie and jeans, curled in on himself and staring intently at the floor, stood Yamaguchi Tadashi.
“Are you the boys volleyball coach?,” she asked Keishin in a cold tone.
“I am. How may I help you?” He’d never had a good ‘customer service voice’, but he tried his best. He hoped his neutral expression didn’t show how the awful feeling had risen up and swollen to cover his entire chest.
“I’m here to sign resignation papers to take my son off your roster.”
The words sent a ripple through the whole team. Most of the team was in a shocked silence. Of course, silence never lasted long in the Karasuno gym.
“Yamaguchi, you’re quitting the team?! Why?!,” Hinata all but shrieked. Yamaguchi honest to god flinched, turning his head away from the redhead guiltily, and his mother’s frown deepened.
“Can you give me the papers? I’d like to get this over with, we have somewhere to be.”
“Ah, I have them at my desk,” Takeda swooped in, always quick to diffuse a situation. “Why don’t you come with me, and we can talk about it there?”
The woman huffed. “Thank you, sir. Tadashi, let’s go.” She turned on her heels, marching back up to the main school building.
“I’m sure he can stay here,” Takeda pressed. “He’ll be here waiting for you. There’s no need to drag him all the way up when he’ll just be coming back down anyways to get his things from his locker. Coach Ukai will be here to keep an eye on him until then, I assure you.” He glanced over at Keishin, and for just a moment, so quick that one could guess they imagined it, something flashed in his eyes as they made eye contact.
He had a plan, and he was trusting that Ukai would help him with it.
“Of course,” he tacked on. “You go sign the paperwork. We’ll be here.”
Yamaguchi’s mother seemed displeased with their insistence, but she just huffed and stomped back to the school. Takeda followed her, turning to mouth a talk to him before he rushed to catch up.
“Tadashi, what the hell is this?,” Tsukishima spat when she was safely out of earshot. Yamaguchi took a shaky breath, looked up to meet Tsukishima’s eyes, and…
His face crumbled, fat tears running down it in waterfalls. Tsukishima approached him wordlessly, and he reached out to him, stumbling—hobbling—forward to wrap his arms around him and sob into his shoulder. Tsukishima held him close, expression carefully cold.
“I’m sorry,” Yamaguchi stuttered out, words barely recognizable around his hyperventilating. “It was an accident. I- last night we were talking, and I told them.
About us. I didn’t mean to, it just slipped.” He lifted his head to meet Tsukishima’s eyes. “They’re making me quit the team, Tsukki,” he sobbed. “They want to transfer me out of Karasuno, or homeschool me. She was talking to the principal about it today.”
The words swept through the team again, sobering them instantly. Even the ever-hyper Hinata was still, staring wide-eyed at his friend.
Son of a -
Slowly, Tsukishima brought his hand up to Yamaguchi’s face. He brushed away some of his tears, and then picked at something on the side of his face that was facing away from Keishin. He slowly peeled back a bandage, and his face grew dark. Keishin approached to see what he was staring at despite the pit of dread growing in his gut.
There was a cut there, an ugly red divet in his face followed by a scratch like a comet tail. Above it, on the very top of his cheekbone, was a small bruise, red-purple, fresh.
“How bad is it?,” Tsukishima asked, voice low and deadly. Yamaguchi didn’t answer him, just wrapped his arms around him and buried his head into Tsukishima’s chest. He was leaning to his right.
“You’re not going back with her,” Tsukishima growled, gripping the back of his boyfriend’s hoodie with barely-restrained rage. “I’m not going to let you go back there.”
“There’s nothing we can do,” Yamaguchi responded shakily, muffled by the body against his face.
“No. Absolutely not,” Keishin stepped in. “If your home isn’t safe for you it’ll be a cold day in hell before I let you go back there. We’re going to help you through this.” He laid his hand on the boy’s shoulder. Yamaguchi tensed. Now that he was touching his arm, Keishin realized he was shaking.
“Takeda is distracting your mother. He’ll keep her occupied until we’re done; you know how he can talk til the world ends.” He pulled out his phone. “Can I take a photo of your injuries?”
Yamaguchi buried himself further into his boyfriend’s chest for a second, but then he lifted his head and let Keishin angle it so he could get clear shots.
“Where else?,” he asked, because even if nobody quite understood these two’s communication, he knew that the non-response to Tsukishima’s earlier question meant ‘bad’.
Yamaguchi removed his arms from around Tsukishima reluctantly and (leaning fully on his right leg, which could mean nothing good) rolled up one of his sleeves. Along his wrist ran purple-red stripes, vaguely outlining the pale shape of bony fingers.
Keishin’s stomach rolled dangerously. Still, he swallowed the feeling and took photos of the injury. He had to be there and think straight for his kid.
His kid . Someone hurt one of his kids .
“I think there’s one on my back,” Yamaguchi muttered. “I didn’t look at it, but it hurts.”
“Okay,” Keishin breathed slowly. “Anywhere else?” He prayed the answer was no.
“One on my side, and my elbow, from the fall,” Yamaguchi told him. “And- I- I fell on my knee wrong. They-” his eyes squeezed shut as he struggled to take a breath. “They popped it back in, but- it hurts, a lot, and- I-” He choked on his words, curling in on himself to wipe his tears.
“Hey,” Keishin soothed, crouching down to meet his eyes. He tentatively reached out a hand and rubbed it up and down Yamaguchi’s arm. “Breath. I know this is difficult. You don’t have to tell us everything just yet if you don’t want to, okay? You have time.”
He was about two seconds away from marching up to the teachers’ lounge and throwing a few good punches. People could say what they want about Keishin, but nobody could say he couldn’t pack a mean punch.
“Let’s get photos of those bruises, and then we’ll sit you down and look at your knee, okay?”
Yamaguchi nodded, turning and leaning back into Tsukishima. He didn’t move to show his back or side. Instead, Tsukishima was the one to lift his hoodie up with the hand that wasn’t making its way to Yamaguchi’s hair.
He wasn’t wearing a shirt underneath, which made the reveal awfully quicker. The mottled bruise ran along his back in a line, like he’d ran into a hard, thin surface. A counter, maybe? It was worse around his spine, blooming out in an even uglier shade of red.
Gasps and whimpers arose from the crowd of boys standing behind them. Ah. Shit. The rest of the team was there too, he forgot. He could use this to their advantage, though.
“I need someone to go get the principal and the nurse,” he barked to the crowd. All eyes turned to Kiyoko, whose eyes were glued to her suffering underclassman. Without looking at them, she nodded.
“I’ll get the principal,” she agreed, and without a second to waste she was gone, sprinting out of the gym at impressive speeds.
“I’ll go get the nurse,” Nishinoya offered. His face was grim. It looked downright wrong on him. Then he was gone too, and the rest of the group was left waiting anxiously. Keishin turned his attention back to Yamaguchi.
“What about your side?,” he asked. He couldn’t see anything on the exposed skin at the moment.
“It’s- it’s on my hip,” Yamaguchi whispered. “I don’t… can we not take a photo of that one?”
“Of course,” he assured. He looked up at Tsukishima just in time to see the deadly glare he was sending his way fade. “Let’s get you to a bench and look at your knee, okay?”
Tsukishima stopped when Yamaguchi tried to hobble forward, holding him back. Wordlessly, he wrapped an arm around the back of his legs and picked him up. Yamaguchi yelped, and Tsukishima and Keishin froze, blood going cold.
“Did I…” Tsukishima trailed off, voice strained, but he glanced fearfully at Yamaguchi’s knee.
“No,” Yamaguchi seethed. “It’s okay. You- aaugh- you were trying to help. It-” he hissed, “it probably would’ve hurt more to walk there.”
They moved slowly to the bench—too slowly, as far as Keishin’s fluttering heart was concerned, but they didn’t want to injure Yamaguchi further by jostling his leg too much. They inched him onto the bench at a snail’s pace, trying their best to cause minimal pain and movement, and Keishin wouldn’t be surprised if the principal and nurse arrived by the time they were done. Once he was settled, Yamaguchi rolled up his jeans. His knee was covered by self-adhesive medical wrap, bent at an angle. Keishin ran his fingers over the bandages, trying to feel for a lifted corner to peel the bandages off.
“Here.” Tanaka had left the crowd and was standing above Keishin now, holding out a tiny pair of scissors folded out of what seemed to be a small pocket knife.
“Do I want to know why you have this?,” Keishin grumbled as he took the scissors and began prying the bandages off.
“It’s just an old pocket tool my grandfather gave me,” Tanaka shrugged. “You never know when you need to cut something open.” He hovered as Keishin continued to cut the bandages inch by inch, like he was unsure what to do now that he was this close.
When the bandages finally fell away, the gauze underneath went with them, sticking to the prickly material. It left Yamaguchi’s knee fully exposed. Bile rose its way up Keishin’s throat.
His knee was swollen, mottled with angry reds and purples, worst across the top. The other side had splatters of red pricks and purple veins running across it.
“We should call an ambulance,” Tanaka murmured. “This… this is bad.”
Keishin nodded. “I was going to wait for the nurse, but you’re right. We don’t have time to waste. If we can get the EMTs here before his mother gets back… it’ll be easier that way.”
“What about the photos?” Ah, that’s right, the photos. He fumbled to pick his phone back off the gym floor.
“Can I take photos of this?,” he asked the injured boy. Yamaguchi wasn’t looking at him, or even really paying attention. His face was hidden again, arms folded in front of him as he leaned flush against Tsukishima. When he looked closely, he could spot a tremble in Yamaguchi’s neck and shoulders.
He and Tsukishima both looked so… vulnerable, wrapped around each other, holding on like their lives depended on it, like someone would try to rip them away from each other at any given moment. Tsukishima glanced up, gaze meeting Keishin’s. His eyes were brimming with terror. He ducked down again, whispering something against the side of Yamaguchi’s head. After a moment, he glanced back up and nodded.
The two of them stayed like that as Keishin finished snapping the photos, as he leaned back and pressed his palms into his eyes, trying to remember how to breathe right, as Noya came running back with the nurse, never letting go. If anything, Tsukishima held on tighter than before.
“We called the ambulance,” Keishin told the nurse when she arrived, still kneeling on the floor. “I’m not sure how much Noya told you, but…” he glanced back at Yamaguchi’s knee. The nurse gasped. She waved him aside and crouched down in front of the boy.
She did her best to assess his injuries while they waited for the principal. He turned up shortly, being led by an uncharacteristically impatient Kiyoko, and instructed them to call the police. There wasn’t much to do then except wait with baited breath for the emergency services to arrive. Of course, someone should’ve predicted that as much as Takeda could talk, he couldn’t hold off the inevitable.
“What is going on here?!” The whole room froze. Yamaguchi jumped out of his skin, reeling back as far as he could on the bench. Tsukishima stood tall and drew himself closer to Yamaguchi, rigid as a guard dog.
“Tadashi,” Mrs. Yamaguchi growled. “What is the meaning of this?” Yamaguchi didn’t answer her. He seemed frozen, somewhat hiding just behind Tsukishima’s shoulder. The nurse stood, covering him from his mother’s view.
“Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you to step outside,” she ordered in a level tone. “You’re causing distress to my student.”
“Your student? He’s my son, first and foremost! You have no right to deny a mother when she wants to see her child.” She craned her neck over the nurse’s shoulder. “Tadashi, we’re leaving. Let’s go.”
“We can’t let you do that, ma’am,” the principal stepped in.
“You’re going to have to,” she barked. “This is ridiculous. You cannot withhold a child from their parent.” She marched up to the nurse, trying to go around to the bench. “Let’s. Go. Tadashi.” The nurse stepped forward to block her path, putting an arm up to keep her back.
“Don’t touch me!” Mrs. Yamaguchi took a step back, glaring furiously at the nurse. “If any one of you lays a hand on me or my son I am going to call the police.”
“The police are already on their way.”
“ For what?!”
“I think you know what for,” the nurse warned, taking a step forward to push her back further. Mrs. Yamaguchi glanced over her shoulder. Her eyes met her son’s, and her outrage went deadly cold.
“All this for that thing?,” she scoffed. “Go ahead, Tadashi, tell them what happened. Tell them what you’re causing such a fuss over.”
Yamaguchi stayed silent, clinging to the back of Tsukishima’s jersey. His mother scoffed.
“He fell . Tripped over his own feet and went tumbling down, and of course he hurt his knee on the way down, because why wouldn’t he?”
“Likely story,” Keishin muttered, marching forward on instinct. “You think we’re that stupid?,” he fumed. “Let me guess, that hand on his arm was to ‘keep him from falling’, was it? And that scrape on his face? What’s your excuse for that?!”
Mrs. Yamaguchi stiffened. “How I discipline my son is none of your business.”
“Discipline?! For what? For what ?”
“Ukai, please,” Takeda pleaded, reaching out. “The police are already on their way. Don’t do anything stupid.” Reluctantly, Keishin let him lead him away. Mrs. Yamaguchi smiled smugly as he retreated.
The distant wail of sirens echoed through the gym.
It was an accident. It was an accident . He was already wound up, already in the middle of a fight. He let himself get too careless. Of course, of course he couldn’t even keep secrets correctly. But she kept nagging him about girls, about the nice girls his age at their church, about the sweet girls in his class, about how he never hung out with any of them. She was poking, and prodding, and sneering at how much time he spent with Tsukki, about how they went to fairs and lunches and school events together when, by his age, he should be taking girls those places. ‘You spend too much time with that boy,’ she had nagged, ‘people are going to get the wrong idea.’
It was an accident.
“Oh, yeah, because god forbid I spend time with my BOYFRIEND.”
The silence was more deafening than any stadium he’d ever been in.
“Excuse me?”
And just like that, his world came crashing down around him.
The doctors said it was a miracle he didn’t cause permanent damage to his knee, popping it back into place and then walking on it like that. The damage done wasn’t anything to scoff at, though. He was told that unless he had a miraculously speedy recovery, he wouldn’t be able to play for three months. He was given a splint and some painkillers and settled into a hospital room until further notice.
That was the next problem. Most patients rested at home, but Tadashi didn’t have a home anymore. He knew that no matter what, he couldn’t let himself be put with his extended family or his godparents, so his case worker was scrambling to find him a place to stay.
The sting of a hand against his cheek wasn’t anything new. The dig of his mother’s wedding ring into his skin was less familiar.
His knees were weak, his back still pressed against the counter. It dug into his aching spine, but he couldn’t move away because she was right there .
“I cannot believe you, Tadashi. It’s bad enough that my son grows up to be a wuss, but I didn’t raise a—“
Her words stung more than the cut on his face.
“Hallå?”
“Good afternoon. Is this Miss Yamaguchi Mai?”
“… Formerly. This is Mrs. Sano Mai speaking, how may I help you?”
“We’re calling you in regards to your nephew, Tadashi.”
“Tadashi? I haven’t seen him since he was just a tot. What’s the purpose of your call?”
“He is in the hospital right now. His parents have been deemed unfit to care for him, and all remaining relatives and godparents have either refused to take him or given us reason to believe that they will not provide him with a safe home. You are the only relative left on our list that can take him.”
Goddamn her rotten sister. Damn her whole stupid family. She’d barely thought of them in the nine years since they disowned her. She didn’t regret leaving, but she hadn’t even considered her nephews and nieces growing up without any support from within the family.
“Sir, all due respect, but I live in Sweden right now. I- what would happen if I couldn’t take him?”
“He would be sent to a group home.”
Shit.
“Let me discuss this matter with my wife. Is there somewhere he could stay in the meantime?”
“I can take him, if he wouldn’t mind,” a new, softer voice chimed in.
“Who is that?”
“My name is Takeda Ittetsu, ma’am. I’m Tadashi’s volleyball club’s advisor.”
“Okay. Okay. Yeah, that would be… that would be very kind of you, if you would be willing to take care of him while I figure things out. If- if that’s fine with him.”
“Well, Tadashi, what do you think?,” the first voice inquired.
“… Yeah. Okay.” He sounded so terribly small, even through the phone.
“Hanako!,” she shouted into the other room when she hung up. “We need to talk.”
‘Get out of my sight.’
She was finally done yelling and fuming, finally done crushing his wrist to punctuate her words, her threats.
‘We’ll deal with your… issue in the morning.’
He passed his father on the way out of the kitchen. He’d watched the whole thing wordlessly, and he glared at Tadashi now as the boy scurried to his room before his father decided he wanted to get some discipline in too.
He stuck his foot out as Tadashi passed him. The ground met him before he realized what had happened.
Pop .
He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t move. The pain burst through his leg, and all he could do was inhale, inhale, inhale uselessly.
And then the screams ripped themselves from his throat.
“DAMNIT AKIHIKO, WHAT DID YOU DO?!”
“I didn’t fucking touch him, the damn boy fell!”
Lies, lies, lies .
“Shit, okay, roll over, Tadashi.”
He couldn’t move, couldn’t control anything. All he could do was curl up and try to breathe.
“I said Roll. Over.” And it was back, that venomous tone, lashing out at him, promising consequences if he didn’t listen.
Thick hands wrapped around his shoulders and turned him over on his back when he didn’t listen. His mother was there, kneeling at his feet. She grabbed his leg and inspected it, poking the protruding kneecap despite his cries.
“We can’t take him to the hospital,” his father grumbled. He knew—-they knew. They knew what they were doing, and they knew it was wrong. Did that make it worse?
“We’ll fix it ourselves,” his mother decided. “You know how to relocate it, don’t you?”
Then his father was there, reaching for his leg, and everything blurred into a mess of panic and unbearable, gut-wrenching pain. He tried to squirm away, but his mother was behind him, pinning his arms to his sides, keeping him in place.
Please, please, no, leave me alone, leave me alone-
“Stop being a pussy,” his father growled. “I can’t fix your fucking leg right if you keep squirming.”
He pressed the palm of his hand into the protruding kneecap and pushed.
Takeda’s house was cozy. It was exactly how one would expect it to be, knowing Takeda. Tadashi sat on his sofa, surrounded by soft blankets, with a mug of tea between his hands. His leg was propped up on the coffee table.
“Tadashi, your aunt wants to talk to you.”
He put down his mug and took the phone. It was starkly colder than his tea.
“Hey Tadashi.”
“Hi.” He didn’t know how to talk to his aunt. The last time he saw her, he was six and she was nineteen and getting disowned by his grandmother for showing up with a girlfriend. It was his first exposure to his family’s homophobia. It certainly wasn’t the last.
“Hanako and I have been talking. We’ve decided that we’re stable enough where we are to take care of you. You can move up to Sweden with us. It might be a little hard to learn the language, but Takeda-san told me you’re in a college prep English class and-”
“ No .”
“... Excuse me?”
‘Excuse me?,’ his mother had said, stopping dead still. She stared at him, drilled her eyes right into his soul. She took a step forward.
‘Your what now?’
And he knew that Aunt Mai was on the other end of the phone, a million miles away in a country on the other end of the world, but his heart was beating out of his chest and everything in him was telling him to run, run, hide .
“I… I can’t leave Miyagi. I can’t leave Karasuno.” His voice was miniscule, a single grain of sand on the shoreline. The walls were closing in around him.
On the other side of the phone, Mai sighed. “Okay. Give us some more time to figure this out. Thank Takeda again for taking care of you for longer.”
She was mad. She was mad . He barely knew Mai. What was she like when she’s mad? Would she get in his face? Would she grab his arm, twist it, make him look at her the whole time she’s yelling? Would she go silent on him, refusing to so much as look at him until he comes crawling with an apology?
“Tadashi? Tadashi, are you okay?” There’s a hand on his shoulder, and his heart jerks out of his body. He flung himself back on instinct. He knew it wouldn’t help, it never does, but he just needs to get away .
“Hey. Kiddo, it’s okay. Nobody’s mad at you. Nobody’s going to hurt you. Do you know where you are?”
He didn’t care where he was, because he was choking on the air he tried to breathe in. He was suffocating, and everything was too much, too much, too much -
A wet cloth was placed over his wrists. Another was draped over his forehead. It was still drenched. The water ran down his face and wrists, leaving goosebumps in its wake. Something wet and freezing was slid into his hand.
The ice stuck to his skin. He moved it to his other hand, and it froze his palm there too.
“Can you take a deep breath for me?” That he could do. If he could do one thing right, it was box breathing.
In, two, three, four. Out, two, three, four. In, two, three-
Shit. His lungs stuttered and spasmed again, refusing to listen to him.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay. Keep trying. It’s okay to mess up, just keep going.”
He tried again, and again, and again, but he couldn’t quite get it. Takeda was there, though, encouraging him to try again. At some point, he slowly put his arm around Tadashi’s shoulder. Tadashi collapsed into him, still stuttering and shaking a bit. He curled up until he couldn’t anymore, flushed against the safety of his teacher.
“It’ll be okay, Tadashi. I know it’s hard right now, but it’ll be okay.”
He was laid across the floor of his bathroom, legs exposed to the cool tile. He could barely feel the chill on his left knee, which was still burning.
He knew he should probably wrap it. He’d found some old gauze and medical wrap under the counter, and he was trying to secure his knee in place, which was difficult when it screamed every time he put pressure on it. Still, he had to keep going. He had to secure it, so he didn’t knock it back out while he slept (if he slept). He could do that, right?
It took far longer than it should have. He had to stop every half a minute or so to breath, draw in his tears, and keep pushing through the pain.
He didn’t get up when he was done. He scooted himself away from the edge of his tub and lay down on the tile, letting the cold soak into his bones.
Maybe he could stay there forever.
Aunt Mai looked different.
She cut her hair, for one. It used to be long and flowing (he only remembered that because his cousins would always get in trouble for pulling it), but now it was cut into a short, rounded bob, reaching just to the bottom of her gauged ears.
She looked happier, too. She was only twenty-eight, but her face already gave hints of smile lines and crows' feet.
And, of course, she was holding hands with the now bleach-blonde (formerly dark brunette) girl that she’d brought to his grandmother’s house all those years ago. On her right hand, a gold band glinted in the sunlight.
She stood in Takeda’s doorway, staring at him, and he felt like he was going to cry. She looked like she might join him.
“Hey, Tadashi,” she greeted. Her smile was awkward, but it was welcoming.
It was terrifying how fast someone’s whole world could change, but everything righted itself in the end. He stood there, leg in a brace, crutches at his side, calender full of physical and mental therapy appointments, facing the great unknown.
Takeda’s hand fell to the back of his shoulderblade. In the other he held Tadashi’s bags.
Everything would be okay. Maybe not now, but eventually. He would be okay.