Chapter Text
You sighed, glancing back and forth between your teacher and the window directly to your left. These past few days the cloud-filled sky has gotten a lot more interesting, it seemed. Your leg was bouncing up and down due to immense nervousness, a habit you have developed to help with anxiety induced jitteriness.
The cause of your anxiety was sitting in the row next to your’s a few seats back. His eyes were practically burning holes through your uniform shirt from his intense stare. This person just so happens to be the infamous Tsukishima Kei.
Now, there is a reason he is glaring at your back, other than the fact that you were nearly bouncing in your seat. Let’s go back to a few days earlier.
You were standing in the school’s field studying the objects around you to attempt at ignoring the gnawing feeling in the pit of your stomach. Your close friend and long time crush, Tsukishima Kei, had told you at lunch to meet him here after school was over. Every possible negative possibility was running through your mind, causing you to shift from foot to foot with nervousness. These thoughts were so incredibly distracting that you hadn’t even heard him approach you.
“What the hell are you doing?” a voice spoke from behind you, sounding more like a statement than a question. Not expecting someone to be so close, you gasped and jumped a foot in the air, leaving your books to tumble onto the ground.
“Ahh-shit!” You scramble to your knees, gathering your books as quickly as you could before whipping around to face the blond. Tsukishima stood before you with a raised eyebrow, clearly confused with your behavior. The silence getting far too heavy for your liking, you clear your throat before directing your gaze to peer into his eyes.
“So, uh, you wanted to talk about something?” Your voice came out a bit shaky despite the efforts to hide your nerves.
“Well no shit.” he responded with a huff, directing his eyes to look anywhere other than into your own. Silence ensued and the tension could probably be sliced and served as a meal. After a few moments of waiting Tsukishima finally broke the agonizing silence. Turning his head and stuffing his hands in his pockets, he mumbled something too low for you to hear. You raised an eyebrow in confusion and leaned forward.
“Could you repeat that? I didn’t understand anything you just said.” Something similar to a growl erupted from his throat and his eye twitched.
“You’re slightly more tolerable than most people so will you go out with me.” he repeated, but loud enough for you to hear this time. Though, you weren’t exactly sure if you even heard him correctly. You could feel your face skyrocket in temperature and you practically choked on air. Wide [e/c] eyes meet golden one’s, finding that his face was also dusted with pink despite his neutral expression.
“You mean like...like on a date ?” the disbelief was a bit too obvious in the tone of your voice, and Tsukishima couldn’t tell if that was good or bad.
“Yes, [y/n], I thought i made that pretty clear when I said it.” he replied with an eye roll. You should’ve been beaming with excitement, smiling from ear to ear from pure joy, but you weren’t. Your stomach should be churning with elatedness, but it wasn’t. The only feeling present was terror. The churning in your stomach was from apprehension, not happiness. Breathing became difficult with how dry your throat had become, and you balled your hands into fists in an attempt to cease their trembling. Why were you on the verge of a panic attack when your biggest crush just asked you out on a date?
Because you, [y/n], are transgender, and nobody knows but your family. Not a single one of your friends are aware that you aren’t cis, not even Yachi whom you’ve become extremely close to. It’s your secret that you have no intention of sharing; you just can’t handle the anxiety that comes with coming out. You nearly passed out when telling your own parents, how could you possibly tell all of your friends? No matter how much you tried to reassure yourself that your friends would accept you with open arms, you just couldn’t convince yourself to do it. And now the boy you’ve daydreamed about for months was standing in front of you, completely oblivious to the fact that what's in your pants is not what he’d be hoping for, unaware of the binder under your uniform shirt, unknowing to your day-to-day struggle with dysphoria. You couldn’t just blurt out “I would love to! Oh, and I forgot to mention, I don’t actually have a dick and there is a piece of cloth flattening my breasts! How does Saturday sound?” Ultimately, you were completely fucked.
For what seemed like hours the silence became increasingly suffocating. Gathering the courage to look him in the face, you saw what looked like hurt flash across his features. Your heart dropped into your stomach at the sight. He took a deep breath, getting ready to speak before you abruptly cut him off.
“Wait!” you exclaimed, a desperate tone in your voice. He clamped his mouth shut and gaxed at you expectantly, waiting for you to continue. Taking a step back, you sighed and began inspecting the grass in an attempt to avoid his suddenly intimidating presence.
“I-,” You paused before deciding to just let the words flow themselves. You’re probably going to regret whatever it is you say anyways, so what’s the point of creating a script?
“Tsukki. I really, really like you. I want to say yes with every bone in my body but-I can’t, Tsukki. I can’t. There isn’t an easy way for me to explain why, but-”
“Well then just say it. Do you really think I care if whatever it is will be ‘easy’ to explain or not?” The annoyance and impatience were all too clear in his tone, along with what sounded like a hint of desperation. “Just get to the point. There’s no way for me to help you if you don't tell me what’s wrong. I’m sure it isn’t as tragic as you make it seem.”
You squeezed your eyes shut, digging your nails into your palms.
“I-it’s not that simple! You don’t understand, there’s no way for you to. It isn’t your fault that you won’t understand, but either way you still can’t!” Your voice came out harsher than intended, but you just weren’t able to bottle up the frustration building up inside of you. Before your mind could process what your body was doing, shaking arms snatched your backpack off of the ground and trembling legs rushed you past the tall boy. You didn’t dare look back; there was no way you could handle seeing the expression on his face at that very moment, or the tears trailing down your cheeks.
The walk home was absolute hell, along with the rest of the night. From the moment you walked away from him to 3:30 a.m. when you finally fell asleep from pure exhaustion, you were having a mental battle over whether you had made the right decision. With your stomach feeling too sick to even look at your dinner, you bitterly wondered how you’d be able to survive facing him in class tomorrow...and the rest of the school year.
And that leads us to the present; about a week after the incident, and you avoiding confrontation at all costs. With your jittery legs, unfocused thoughts, and Tsukishima’s determined but frustrated glare boring singes into the back of your head.