Chapter Text
I will write our story in my mind
Write about our dreams and triumphs
This might be my innocence lost
I can taste the ocean on your skin
That is where it all began
- R.E.M.
It is 10 pm on Friday and Tadashi’s having an epiphany in the middle of his cramped kitchenette as he whisks egg whites for his second attempt at soufflé this evening. He is giving up on Kei. In the background, Mayumi Itsuwa’s soothing voice echoes Tadashi's own heartbreak - without him to sing along. Trying to swallow the lump in his throat proves useless as he sets the bowl on the counter unable to stop whisking the damn thing – he probably has overdone it again anyway. He mutters a louder ‘oh’ and collapses into the kitchen chair.
Kei has been a distant thought for some time now – flaring up during particularly lonely nights but without its familiar intensity. It’s been over six months since their last encounter – sue his traitorous heart keeping track without his consent. Their recent exchange was today - a simple happy birthday message from Tadashi to Kei, met with an equally plain thank you. They didn’t bother to follow up niceties.
The realisation is a physical ache; Tadashi is letting go of Kei, his best friend. Kei, the lover? Well, how on earth he can give up on something he never had in the first place? The lover had always been imaginary, sweet and unearthly. The friend had given millions of glimpses into “what could have been”s over the years, only for Tadashi to give up on that possibility long ago. At least that’s what he’d been repeating himself as he watched his friend with someone new by his side every other year.
Attempting to trace the moment of decision proves futile. Perhaps it is a culmination of too many instances: his one-sided efforts at maintaining the already threadbare connection with the other man, and the lack thereof response to his efforts. Maybe today marks the tipping point. Tadashi didn’t call Kei - just as he had every year when he couldn’t physically be there to annoy Kei into a small celebration. The fear of hearing the finality of their drifting apart in the stilted and awkward phone call won over his persistent love. And so, Tadashi starts to surrender a part of him, that is intertwined with everything that is Kei, to time.
Tadashi forces himself to get up slowly – there’s a soufflé waiting for his attention after all. It is only when he tastes the salt in his lips that he realises that he’s been crying. But what are a tears compared to a life time of friendship, he ponders. He is giving up on Kei and the world keeps on turning, just as it’d been doing for a very very long time.
***
Friday night baking has become a tradition for Tadashi, shortly after his move to Tokyo as a fresh-faced salaryman. He’d complained to anyone who would listen about how tiny his flat was, but he’d warmed up to it around a month into habituating it. Baking nights still make him wish for a place with proper kitchen though.
Much like many others, baking is a form of meditation for Tadashi, but probably not for the same reasons. It is not the precision and the focus that grounds him - in fact, he’d call himself an experimentalist even though it leads to a disaster (see, disheartening soufflé attempts) more often than he’d like to admit. For Tadashi, it is the freedom: of mixing things together, of making a mess of the kitchen counter and when he finally puts the product to the oven, process of cleaning up. It is the freedom of being released by his day-time troubles, approaching deadlines at work, his non-existing love life. Of momentarily removing himself from the time and space and becoming a part of the machinery of creation.
It is already midnight when he finally takes the Pumpkin Swiss Roll out from the oven. The smell wafting through the kitchen is heavenly and the cake itself looks satisfactorily good under the flash of his phone. He almost drops the phone when it vibrates loudly, alerting a message from a name he’d least expect: Kei. His stupid heart flutters in his chest - for no other reason than being trained that way for years.
Happy birthday Yamaguchi.
Indeed, the screen reads 00:08. Tadashi knows that this is an obligatory congratulation, a courtesy to their short interaction from a month before. Yet, he finds it odd, the un-Tsukki nature of a midnight text message. As if he couldn’t wait until the morning, as if he’d stayed up just because - . He stops himself before getting ahead, but many years of both conscious and unconscious training at interpreting Kei is not a something he can shut down at will.
He replies with a predictable and safe ‘thank you’. Until the next obligatory exchange Tsukki, he mutters to the phone at his hand. The chime of the phone that comes a minute later, claiming it’s Kei - again, is just as surprising as the first.
Any plans?
Tadashi wonders for a brief moment whether the question is a genuine curiosity on Kei’s part or a forced pleasantry.
‘Not really’, he replies without much thinking. He deliberately ignores the warm tug in his stomach. They are after all still friends, right?
‘Except I’m going to attend a cake tasting. Looking forward to it!’
Cake testing?
For Kuroo and Kenma’s wedding - they are out of the town and trusted to me to pick the top candidates!!
Kuroo and Kei (to everyone’s surprise) dated two weeks during Kei’s freshman year until Kuroo realized that he was in love with Kenma after all (not to anyone’s surprise). Strange enough, Kei and Kenma has become even closer after that, mostly joining forces at irritating Kuroo. Tadashi somehow had found himself in this clique of close friends since then.
If Tadashi were to rate his most awkward dinner meetings, the dinner four of them had together shortly after the break-up would definitely be in the top three. He felt uneasy, mostly for Kei’s sake. He could not understand how Kei was comfortable being around Kuroo and Kenma this soon. Throughout the night, Tadashi kept checking whether Kei was showing any signs of discomfort - ready to end the night and head back to the safety of the blonde’s dorm, but there were none. Tadashi concluded that maybe a relationship that lasted less than one month was not enough to leave emotional scars.
He spent most of the dinner contemplating how Kuroo could so easily let someone like Kei go. Kei was perfect in every sense of word, from his sharp mind to crooked sense of humor, the way he’d hide a tiny smile when he found something particularly interesting or looking thoughtful to hide the fact that he wasn’t paying attention. Even though Kenma was objectively attractive, he couldn’t compare to Kei, at least in Tadashi’s eyes. Kei was all delicate edges and soft colors. And it was at the end of that night, as Tadashi walked alongside Kei back to his dorm, that he finally realized that -holy shit - he was in love with Kei.
Since then, the Nekoma duo has slowly but steadily warmed their way into Tadashi’s heart and are now an important part of his daily-life, more prominent than Kei had been for a while. His only relief is to listen to the occasional complaints of his Tokyo friends that how little Kei is keen on keeping contact with them too.
You are the only good soul to do something like on their birthday.
He smiles involuntarily, his mind conjuring up the annoyed expression of Kei. He snickers as he types:
Cakes Tsukki, I repeat, twenty-something CAKES!!!!
This is the best birthday present ever!
Tadashi is about to set his phone aside expecting no response, and truthfully, they’d already exceeded the quota of interaction that’d last them for a while. Except, comes another chime of the phone.
Coming home for Christmas?
It’s not a strange question, there is only a month left for the festivities. As much as they had never explicitly made plans for Christmas together, visiting their respective families and finding a time to exchanging gifts - despite Kei’s pretence to hate it - have been their unspoken tradition. And no matter how long they’d been apart, Tadashi could always count on meeting with Tsukki during holidays; making it a game to map out every insignificant change on the other man: little scars, new habits, anything that’ll satisfy the longing of weeks or months.
A loud sigh of discomfort dislodges from his chest as he types and sends a simple, No. This will be his first time he won't be celebrating Christmas with his family - hence not seeing Tsukki after what it feels like a life-time.
Problem at home?
Tadashi gazes at the text, his mind drifting to the fragility of a future where he’ll grieve the absence of every little aspect that defines Kei. His revelation from weeks ago about giving up on Kei and his silent determination to embrace it, is already on the brink of collapse. How easily swayed he is, when it comes to Kei.
‘Don’t worry Tsukki! It’s just - Mr & Mrs Yamaguchi decided to have their second honeymoon this Christmas!!’
‘and they were so cute to ask for my permission’
Tadashi had been encouraging his parents to travel for some time and they had finally took his advice. They sounded equally ecstatic and guilty on the phone when they told him that they finally made a reservation for the onsen in Hokkaido – a place they’ve been wanting to visit for a long time. His mother almost behaved as if they were leaving Tadashi, who just turned 25 half an hour ago, in the streets. He hasn’t really given it a thought about how he’ll spend the week yet.
Come to Akiteru’s? We are meeting there this year.
A bitter smile forms on Tadashi’s face as he reads the text. The memories of the last time he had met Akiteru, his lovely wife and the twins he adores way too much floods back.
They were at the stadium for the Sendai Frogs game last February, cheering loudly for Kei. Tadashi and Akiteru’s twins had even made a game out of it, where the one who’d make Kei to send an embarrassed smile to their way would earn a point. Tadashi had four points that evening, the highest, and was almost euphoric with happiness until the boyfriend showed up in the third set. He was too polite as he explained that he was there to pick up Kei for Valentine’s day dinner. The atmosphere became awkward afterwards, and Tadashi’s enthusiasm vanished, leaving the twins upset.
He regrets now the way he left immediately after the game finished, making up a lie about needing to head back Tokyo and without saying proper goodbye to the twins in order to avoid meeting Kei. That was the last time he saw the Tsukishimas. He has missed them.
Akiteru & co. will have a ball if you do.
Tadashi has no doubt that they will be happy to see him and he will be overjoyed too – but he cannot help but wonder whether that holds true for Kei too.
Thanks Tsukki! He writes back, because he does not have to courage to ask. But I can’t impose on like that.
You won’t be.
Seriously, I might be disowned if you spend the Christmas alone.
Unless you aren’t, of course…
Alone I mean.
Sorry for assuming.
It’s cool you already made plans.
Tadashi holds his breath, marvelling at the fact that this might just be the longest text Kei ever sent to him in the past year. What a birthday gift, indeed. He wants to savour every and each word, to dissect and expose their meaning. Tadashi hopes with his whole heart that he is not deluding himself, but maybe, just maybe, Kei wants him there too, even if he avoids saying it in exact words. The thing is, no matter how much he convinces himself that he is giving up on Kei, Tadashi wants to be there too.
I don’t have plans yet, he settles on sending, as the bitter voice in his head screams betrayal.
So you will come?
Writing “I will think about it” or “Oh, forgot about a maintenance update at work ha!” or even, ‘”My (non-existent) boyfriend just invited me to his parents just now, what are the chances, right?” are options Kei will probably not press further. Part of him wants to refuse just because, to spite Kei. But any invitation from Kei is rare and thus special, and Tadashi can’t bear the thought of turning him down.
I will, he types finally, his finger hovering over the send button. He wonders if he should wait until morning just for the sake of it. His heart clenches with the possibility of invitation becoming invalid, like a carriage turning into pumpkin. With a deep breath, he hits the send.
***
Tadashi groggily wakes up to his ringtone. Should have put it to the silent mode, is his first thought as he aimlessly gropes for his phone and, It’s Kuroo, is his next, because he certainly does not remember setting ‘This Charming Man’ as a ringtone to someone and there’s only one person who would do such a thing.
‘Good morning our favorite groomsmaid!’ Kuroo greets, too chipper for someone up at a Saturday morning.
Tadashi groans in response. He shouldn’t be held responsible for his impoliteness this early. ‘Did you just say groomsmaid?’
Kuroo laughs heartily through the speaker. ‘Isn’t it perfect? Bo found the word!’
‘Wouldn’t groomsbutler or groomsvalet make more sense?’ Tadashi asks, considering the idea.
‘Groomsbutler?’ There is a moment of silence, and Tadashi can tell Kuroo is seriously considering the suggestion.
‘Nah,’ he concludes. “It sounds too formal! But you know what, let me ask what Bo thinks.’
‘I might like groomsvalet’ Kenma chimes in silently and Tadashi can’t help but chuckle loudly. There is a momentary silence, and then a chorus of ‘Happy birthday Tadashi!’ erupts loudly inside the room. A comforting warmth, one that Tadashi silently vows never to take for granted, washes over him as he manages a choked up thank you.
‘Ohohoho, getting sentimental over us?’ Kuroo teases.
‘Maybe I am.’ Tadashi replies, honestly. Embracing the embarrassment pays off most the of time, this time in the form of happy sounds coming from the other side of the phone. ‘How is Hokkaido?’ he asks, in an attempt to change the subject.
‘Cold’ Kenma complains, ‘It’s been only a day here and I already missed home.’
‘The cold weather is doing wonders for your skin babe!’ Kuroo adds. 'Not that it was not ethereally -'
Kenma interrupts his tirade with a big fake cough to stop him. Tadashi really loves these people dearly.
‘Tadashi, we couldn’t thank you enough for the cake testing’, Kenma continues, ‘hopefully it won’t be a burden.’
‘Burden? Kenma, do you know me?’ Tadashi scoffs. ‘I’m going to drown in cakes in my birthday, this is one of the best presents I’ve ever got.’
‘Well in that case’ comes Kuroo’s voice, a little conspiring, ‘Remember to take a good look around the surroundings. ’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Tadashi asks, suspicious. One thing Tadashi learned from his years of experience being friends with Kuroo, and unavoidable association to Bokuto Koutarou, you get used to expect the unexpected.
‘Hmm’ Kuroo muses, ‘a chance encounter with a stranger of your dreams? Who knows? Imagine how romantic that would be?’
‘Kenma’ Tadashi warns. ‘Please tell me you didn’t set me up with someone at the cake shop. The future of your wedding cake might be in danger.’
‘What Noo! Tadashi, you can’t do that to us.’ Kuroo jumps in.
‘You definitely set me up with someone, didn’t you?’ Tadashi rolls around his bed in frustration.
‘Technically we didn’t ’Kenma says, voice calm over Kuroo’s whining in the background. ‘Just mentioned how nice and single you are to someone equally nice and single.’
‘Kenma you traitor!’ Tadashi groans, drowning his face in the pillow.
‘Hey, the guy just works there.’ Kenma reasons. ‘No setting up, promise.’
‘You are a groomsmaid Tadashi’ Kuroo interjects. ‘Any kind of romantic thing can happen to you from now on. This is how each rom-com movie starts off.’
‘Uhh you guys are hopeless.’ Tadashi resigns.
‘Well - in the worst case scenario’ Kuroo replies with a serious note, ‘we might need to pay for the cake.‘
'You marrying into a rich Kuroo,' Tadashi teases with a grin. 'Money will be the least of your worries.' He can hear Kenma's giggles as Kuroo goes on a tangent about how he indeed will be a trophy husband.
‘Thanks for doing this for us Tadashi,’ Kenma says, ‘We really appreciate this.’
‘And we love you!’’ Kuroo adds cheerfully ‘whether you manage to get us a free cake or not.’
'Sure thing!' 'Tadashi can’t help but laugh ‘I love you too guys.’
As they hang up with promises to catch up later that afternoon, Tadashi finally forces himself to get out of the bed - he has some groomsmaid business to attend after all.
***
His breakfast is a grand affair – because birthday breakfasts are as sacred as birthday cakes in Yamaguchi household and Tadashi takes pride in carrying on the tradition. His second cup of coffee grows cold, forgotten at the counter over Shoyou and Tobio’s much too animated joint video calls. Yachi catches him on his way out the flat and fusses over to make him double check whether he turned off the stove, closed the windows, and unplugged the iron. The fact that Tadashi is wearing a simple t-shirt and jean combination and didn’t even use the iron does not deter the blonde. ’It was just one time Hitoka-chan and I was only away for half an hour!’ Yamaguchi complains as he finally, manages to step out the apartment. Yachi scolds him a bit more and tells him that she loves him, and Tadashi tells her that he loves him back and all is well. He silences the nagging voice in his head, longing hear Kei’s voice as well.
The cake shop he is heading to now has always been one of their favourite spots to hang out in Tokyo, and naturally, the couple -mostly Kuroo- got sentimental over trusting the shop with their wedding cake. It’s only a thirty-minute-walk from home, so Tadashi slips on his headphones and lets the perfect Autumn afternoon fade into a blur of songs.
His thoughts drift to Kei, of how typical of him to distrupt Tadashi’s tiny world uninvited and unaware. He can’t help but feel frustrated, mostly with himself, as if her realization and resolution hadn't been strong enough to resist his old habits. It takes just a simple invitation. He knows he shouldn’t, but he is looking forward to Christmas, almost wishing the days away, yet with the conviction that this would be his silent farewell. He deserves to see Kei one last time, as his best friend and unrequited love.
When he finally steps inside the café, a waiter welcomes him with a familiar smile. Tadashi informs him about the cake testing and the waiter rushes back to call their events manager. Almost less than a minute, a good-looking man around Tadashi’s age approaches him with a smile introducing himself as Sasaki - probably the very person Kuroo and Kenma were trying to set him up with. He guides Tadashi to a secluded corner of the cafe, transformed into a traditional Japanese tea room. At its center lies a low table displaying an array of exquisite petite fours, accompanied by a tea pot and two cups.
As they settle around the table, Tadashi immediately reaches for his phone, eager to capture each delicate creation and to take notes. He snaps the photo of the spread, and sends it off to Kei with the caption ‘Heaven on earth’ before hesitation can intervene. He assures himself that there is nothing extraordinary with sending a proof of his extraordinary birthday gift - to a friend.
Tadashi was sincere when he wrote to Kei about this being the best birthday present. What began as experimental Friday baking sessions borne out of boredom has turned into a genuine passion for him and he finds himself enraptured by Sasaki’s meticulous descriptions of each confection, from intricate details of ingredient selection to its transformation into a wedding cake.
The pleasant surprise on Sasaki’s features, each time Tadashi asks questions in equal seriousness encourages him to talk more openly; discussing the confectionaries that would best suit Kenma and Kuroo’s tastes. Tadashi has baked them for countless times before: Kuroo’s consistent declaration that each of Tadashi’s baked goods is the best undermines his reliability as a judge. Kenma’s discerning palate is the one Tadashi aims to please and he is proud to declare that he mastered the art of baking treats that make Kenma to ask for another slice in quiet happiness.
Having finally selected top three contenders, they schedule another meeting, this time with Kenma and Kuroo present. Sasaki explains that they will prepare a small demonstration of each confectionary in wedding cake forms. As they are about the part ways, Sasaki presents Tadashi with a small box, his smile almost shy.
‘Yamaguchi-san, I realise that you may be a little weary of desserts now’ he says with a quiet chuckle, ‘but Kuroo and Kenma-san mentioned it’s your birthday today, so please accept this. ‘ He bows slightly, offering an enthusiastic ‘happy birthday’.
Tadashi can’t help but smile, bowing in return, ‘There is never too much dessert for me Sasaki-san. Thank you.’
With the cake box in hand, Tadashi re-traces his steps back home, reflecting about the pleasant time he’d just had. He admits to himself that Sasaki has a kind aura and wears a gentle smile. He tries to imagine what it’d be like to try to love - someone else. Starting from scratch, learning each and every small details about them, and have his heart flutter each time they smiled at his way. His thoughts are disrupted with a vibration coming from his phone.
Between his live-texting with Kenma and Kuroo, and his enthusiastic discussions with Sasaki, he had already forgot about the photo he sent to Kei. His whole body tenses up as he receives a reply - a short voice message. No one but him needs to know that he stands frozen in the middle of the pavement, unable to wait until he gets home to listen what Kei has to say.
‘You deserve the best. Happy birthday… Tadashi.’
It is simple, short and nothing out of ordinary. It is just - Kei hasn't called him Tadashi in a very long time. He can feel his whole face burning, his heart pounding with joy and an involuntary smile spreading across his lips. Somehow his wish is granted - he heard Kei’s voice. And once again, uninvited and unaware, Kei disrupts his world.