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Yamaguchi’s been smiling for so long, so hard, that his cheeks actually hurt. His joy feels too large for his body to continue, spilling over into his wide smile, his too loud laughter and trembling shoulders. It’s rare for him to let himself be quite so authentic, although he’s sure he must be making a fool of himself. Tadashi can’t find it in himself to care enough to feel embarrassed about it even though it’s probably immature of him.
Who would’ve thought this group of teammates and opponents alike would’ve brought this buried, unself-conscious part of him out? It would’ve surprised him enough, back in first year, that he was this friendly with Hinata and Kageyama let alone boys from other schools.
Sometimes he can’t quite believe the life he’s living.
He’s not quite sure whose idea it had been to play spin the bottle, perhaps one of the Miya twins, but pretty much everyone had been on board. Even Kageyama had let Hinata persuade (or bully) him into playing and Tadashi now sits comfortably squashed between them, his feet pressed against Hinata’s thigh and his knees digging into Kageyama’s hip.
Everyone except for one, of course.
He can feel the prickle of Tsukki’s gaze on him but, when he turns to look, Tsukki is engrossed in something on his phone. Probably one of the app games he’s obsessed with right now, all colourful characters and paywalls that Tadashi himself doesn’t have the patience for, he thinks as his heart squeezes fondly. He doesn’t, however, want to know what Tsukki’s opinion of tonight’s events are although he’s sure he can guess.
Pathetic.
The realisation of it is just on the edge of his awareness but Tadashi tries as hard as he can not to actually think about it. When Tsukki was all he had, he would’ve never had the confidence to do this and yet…
“Hey, Yamaguchi!” Koganegawa calls out before he’s quickly hushed by the others. It’s enough, though, to snap Tadashi out of his reverie. “Okay, sorry, sorry Shouyo!”
“Mom will kill me if we wake up Natsu,” Hinata replies, shooting Koganegawa a glare that’s as venomous as when they have a net between them.
It seems to work, though, and Koganegawa nods solemly, pressing his fingers to catlike mouth as if he’s zipping it closed. Tadashi turns his attention away from Koganegawa and back to the game and, ah,…
That’s why Koganegawa was trying to get his attention. The bottle is pointed squarely towards him.
“Whose spin was it?” Hinata asks through a yawn, nudging Tadashi with his shoulder. Tadashi shrugs, not wanting to voice why he had been distracted; He’d been having too much fun and then he’d been thinking about Tsukki.
“Mine,” the blonde Miya, Atsumu, announces and Tadashi feels his heart rate pick up. There’s something almost predatory in Atsumu’s smile and Tadashi can’t help but feel like the prey. Or, maybe, that’s just the effect blondes have on him…
“Well,” Atsumu drawls, leaning forwards across the circle, an honest to god smirk on his face as he says “truth or dare, Tadashi-kun?”
Tadashi feels himself swallow. The game wasn’t quite so fun when everyone’s attention was on him. Still, he doesn’t want to ruin it for everyone else so he steals himself, considering the two options.
“Dare.” It seems the safest option where Atsumu is involved. Maybe he’ll have to sneak downstairs where Hinata-san is patrolling or eat some disgusting combination of the snacks everyone has brought or…
“I dare you to kiss one of us!”
Tadashi knows plenty about being a coward. Hell, half the room probably has witnessed him commit some form of cowardice both on and off the court. Never has he felt more at peace with the choice to be a coward because there’s no way…
“Atsumu,” Osamu scolds his brother, “you’re being un-“
“It’s fine,” Tadashi hears himself say. Why is he saying that? It’s very not fine and yet having the others take pity on him, just like everyone inevitably does, is more painful. “I’ll do it. Unless you guys don’t want me-“
“Of course, Tadashi-kun,” Osamu says, leaning back.
As the other boys chatter picks up, it finally dawns on Tadashi that he’s really going to have to do this. It’s not like he’s short on choices who wouldn’t be awful, either. Osamu is one since Tadashi can’t stop thinking of when he’s asked him to eat onigiri, a strange shiver going up his spine at the thought. No boy, or anyone actually, had asked him anything like that before.
Koganegawa and even Atsumu himself aren’t unappealing and, shit, maybe he really does have a type. Goshiki is cute although Tadashi’s not sure he could stand the boost it would give his ego if he chose him. Hinata would probably be okay; he’d be nice about it at least and his lips would probably taste nice from all the candy he’s eaten. Kageyama… well… he’s handsome of course but Tadashi is pretty sure the shock-come-embarrassment of the situation might send him into an early g-
“Yamaguchi!” Tsukishima’s unmistakable voice cuts across the whispered clamour and everyone falls silent. Tadashi feels the prickle of their gazes turn away from him, presumably to look at Tsukishima instead.
“Ah,” the words trip off his tongue with easy familiarity before he can even think about them. “Sorry, Tsukki!”
Pathetic. That’s what Kei must think of him. He’s really made a fool of himself this time, he’s really…
“I’ll do it.”
“Hey, Tsukki! You can’t just volunteer, Yamaguchi has to-“ the other’s chatter just fades into the background, like the crackle of TV static.
What?
What?
No, no, this can’t be happening, Tadashi thinks, clenching his hands on his crossed knees. He must’ve misunderstood or Tsukki has misunderstood or something very strange is happening but there’s no way that Tsukki had just volunteered to kiss him. To be kissed by him. In front of their friends. He can’t. Tadashi can’t.
And, yet, he aches with want in equal parts as he aches with shame because that’s it, isn’t it? The very reason why he can’t possibly pick Tsukki out of everyone even though he’d be Tadashi’s first choice. Because he’d be Tadashi’s first choice.
And, now, they’re all staring at him expectantly. The others surely all think that he’s been given the perfect opportunity since he and Tsukki are so close. What is a little extra intimacy between friends?
Everything. It’s everything. Everything he’s worked so hard to bury Everything he’s tried to ignore. Everything he’s always secretly hoped for. Everything that will ruin his longest and most precious friendship.
Still, it’s being offered to him. He could have it and it would mean nothing.
“Ugh,” Hinata says from next to him. “As if anyone would want to kiss you, Stingyshima.”
“You crows crack me up!” Atsumu laughs, cutting through the tension like a knife. He leans on Osamu’s shoulder who looks bored by the whole thing. Kageyama, too, has half-lidded eyes and Koganegawa is leaning heavily on Goshiki’s shoulder, whose gaze flits anxiously from person to person. Knowing his teammates, this whole situation must be very strange for him.
“So. Are we going to kiss?” Kei asks, folding his glasses carefully and stowing them in his pants pocket.
Tadashi squeaks, unable to look away from Kei’s face. They simply look at each other for a couple of beats. Kei’s eyes are so big and amber, like two swirling stars, and Tadashi feels blinded by them. “Uh, yeah. I-… yeah. It’s-…”
“Yamaguchi.”
“Guh. Uh. Yes, Tsukki?” Tadashi stammers, blinking rapidly.
“Shut up.” Tsukki says, his voice barely above a whisper. For Tadashi’s ears only.
“Ah, sorry Tsukki.” Tadashi manages before leaning, slowly, slowly, in, giving Kei time to recoil. In horror most likely.
Instead, Kei stays frozen and he tentatively presses his lips to Tsukki’s. His lips feel smooth and soft against Tadashi’s own but this isn’t surprising because he knows that Kei keeps a chapstick in his bag just like he knows everything else about him. Despite having his eyes closed, Tadashi has never felt more aware, at least of Tsukki. The rest of the room melts into the background of Tsukki, Tsukki, Tsukki. Tsukki’s breathing out of his nose, his breath gusting warmly against Tadashi’s cheek, slow and rhythmic. Tadashi finds himself matching his own panicked breathing to Kei’s. Tsukki’s lips taste faintly of the sandwiches they’d eaten for lunch from the combini; the egg that Kei had picked up while he’d looked longingly at the fruit sandos. Tadashi can’t stop the sigh that escapes his throat; Kei must be able to taste the katsu on him.
Tadashi springs backwards, away from Kei, crashing into Kageyama’s side. Kageyama grunts and shoves him upright again, but it’s surprisingly gentle so Tadashi knows they’re good.
“Well,” he manages to say, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. His brain feels like it’s short circuiting, fizzing with electricity.
“Yeah,” Kei says quietly and, when Tadashi glances at him, he can see that his cheeks are faintly dusted pink.
“That was anticlimactic,” Atsumu says from across the circle and Tadashi freezes. The others. He’d forgotten about them.
“I tried to tell you,” Osamu sighs, rolling his eyes. “That was lame.”
It wasn’t. It had felt… it had felt. Right.
Of course, Hinata-san takes that moment to knock, more than a little exasperatedly, on the door and ask them to all settle down the sleep now please so he can’t even talk to Tsukki about it. Was it okay? Were they ok? Why had Tsukki volunteered himself like that?
Tsukki certainly isn’t looking at him, as he lays out his bedroll, and yet Tadashi can feel the suffocating weight of all of Tsukki’s attention focused on him. He shivers, hands fumbling as he tries to lay his own bedroll flat. He feels raw and hollowed out, wishing that he’d never agreed to come to the sleepover at all and that he’d definitely not persuaded Tsukki to come.
“Good night, boys,” Hinata-san says, cheerfully unaware of Tadashi’s inner-turmoil and flips the light switch, plunging them all into darkness.
Tadashi drags himself dutifully under the covers and rolls onto his side, stretching his toes down to the bottom of the bedroll in search of any patches of coldness. It’s a hopeless attempt at
“Yamaguchi?” It’s so quiet that Tadashi almost misses it. “Yamaguchi!”
“Ah,” Tadashi says as he blinks his eyes open. Through the darkness, he can just about make out Tsukki’s shadow beside him. “Tsukki?”
“Come to the bathroom with me.”
Tadashi blinks into the darkness. Surely… Tsukki isn’t afraid of the dark is he? Tadashi knows he has a dinosaur nightlight in the corner of his room
“Because,” he mutters, already getting up anyway. “Because of the dark?”
Tsukki pauses where he’s freeing himself of his own bedding. Even though he can’t see Tsukki’s face, Yamaguchi is sure that he’s getting glared at. “No. We need to talk.”
And, just like that, Tadashi stomach drops.
“O-okay.”
The Hinata’s residence is deadly silent, except for the others quiet breaths, so that Tadashi almost feels like he’s in a dream as he follows Tsukki into the small family bathroom.
“I needed to talk to you. Alone.”
“Well, y’know.” Tadashi starts to say. His gaze is fixed on a bottle of strawberry shampoo that somebody has left in the shower. His heart hammers in his chest. “You actually don’t have any right to be mad with me. You were the one who volunteered to kiss me, after all.”
“What?” Replies Tsukki quickly and Tadashi watches as a wrinkle forms between his eyebrows. Tsukki’s mouth turns down into a scowl and Tadashi’s chest squeezes tightly.
“You were the one who so desperately wanted to kiss me. You can’t blame me for going along with it.” He takes a deep shuddering breath between sentences. There. He’s said it. So why doesn’t he feel the weight off his chest? “Sure, blame me for dragging you along and playing childish games but that part… that’s on you, Tsukki.”
The scowl slips away, replaced by something much worse. A scowling or smirking Tsukki means he’s teasing but a blank, emotionless Tsukki… “What?” He says simply and for some reason, the simplicity of it starts to make something hot and angry rise up in Yamaguchi.
“You can’t blame me for that!”
“You didn’t like it?”
Yamaguchi splutters. Is Tsukki really trying to humiliate him even more? “You can’t ask me that. You can’t… of course I liked it. It was you.”
“Me?” There’s still a kind of careful blankness in Tsukki’s face but his voice has softened to the tone he talks to Yamaguchi in when they’re at the combini alone.
“I…,” he takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. “I like you, Tsukki!”
In the silence, he can hear the slow dripping of the tap and the distant snores of their friends but still, beneath the clinical light of the bathroom, Tadashi feels like they are a world away.
“I like you too, Tadashi. I couldn’t let anyone else kiss you. I’m sorry.”
Tadashi’s eyes snap open, heart hammering so loudly that it reverberates inside of his ears and palms suddenly slick with sweat. What? In front of him, Kei stands illuminated by the unforgiving light which clings to his every imperfection and multiplies them - the bags beneath his eyes, the sharpness of his noses and the slight crookedness of his jaw are suddenly in sharp focus. So, is the light but swiftly darkening smattering of pink spreading through Kei’s cheeks.
Tadashi sees them all, every single flaw and perfection, and yet he doesn’t at all.
“Tsukki,” he breathes, as gently as if he too were sleeping. “Do you want to try again? Just us this time.”
Kei’s splotchy blush deepens immediately and he ducks his head shyly. Nothing is hidden in the reflection of the mirror but Tadashi resolutely looks away, seeing only what Kei allows. After a moment, the blonde top of his head bobs in ascent as Kei unfurls himself again.
This time when they kiss, Kei’s lips are still warm and smooth but, after a moment of hesitation, move gently against Tadashi’s own and then with more and more desperation. His hand comes up to clutch at the short hairs at the back of Tadashi’s skull, fingertips scratching gently there as Tadashi licks into his mouth, soft and kittenish. Here, Kei is warm and tastes even more strongly of the sando he’d eaten and Tadashi lets out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding.
It’s everything.
***
In the morning, the others let them sleep late and nobody comments on the change of position of their bedrolls.