Chapter Text
Yamaguchi Tadashi was losing hope in ever getting the girl of her dreams. Every attempt at getting Tsukishima to look at her as more than a friend was just one fail after the other.
Did Tsukishima just not see her in that way? This was a question she ruminated on most late nights, tossing and turning and going through every interaction the two had had up to this point. No, she had concluded.
Yamaguchi saw the way her flirtatious advances had filled the girl’s cheeks with the prettiest splotches of pink. Every bat of her eyelashes made Tsukishima stumble over her words and each touch she initiated textured her skin with goosebumps. Her reactions gave her the confidence to keep pushing a little more, and more.
When Yamaguchi was once asking her a few times a month to hang out, now she was asking her several times a week. And Tsukishima hardly refused. If she had nothing scheduled for the date and time suggested, she couldn’t have rushed any faster to accept Yamaguchi’s invitations. That’s why it was so confusing to Yamaguchi that she would be having such a hard time getting the girl to ask her out.
“Like, what does she even wear those glasses for if she’s blind to every signal I drop,” Yamaguchi huffed out. Yachi is beside her shaking with silent laughter. “At this point, they’re just for accessory.”
They were currently in the middle of a bookstore’s cafe, taking turns talking about their doomed crushes on gorgeous girls while sipping on overpriced coffee. Yachi had just finished her update on how things were—or rather weren’t going—with the kind volleyball player on their college’s team, Kanoka.
While Yamaguchi liked to be bold in her advances with the blonde, Yachi preferred a more subtle approach. Although she always comforted her friend when it was her time to express her frustrations, Yamaguchi secretly thought that Yachi could stand to do a little more to relay her intentions.
It was clear to her that Kanoka was smitten with her friend if the way her eyes always immediately zeroed in on Yachi the second she stepped into her line of sight meant anything.
Furthermore, any time Yamaguchi tagged along with Yachi to cheer the athlete on at her games, she could always sense a difference in her play after she found Yachi in the bleachers. Her cheeks, already quite stained from exertion, darkened in color and the fire in her eyes brightened with determination. She was ready to impress.
She would have to start getting serious if she was going to help those two, she thought finally.
Yachi’s hum brought her back to the present topic at hand. Her scheming to get the two together would have to wait for another time.
“You have been pretty forward so far,” Yachi stated. Her face was scrunched up, clearly trying to rearrange her tangled thoughts into something more conceivable. “I don’t think the message is totally going over her head. I think it’s something else.”
“What then?” Yamaguchi cringed inwardly at how whiny she sounded but she couldn’t help it. It was this or the waterworks, and sounding like a spoiled brat seemed way better than crying in a crowded place about her crush. Yachi offered her a sympathetic look.
“I’m not really sure, but there’s something holding her back. I mean, she’s clearly in love with you.”
It reassured her to hear Yachi say this. If she thought Tsukishima was head over heels for her then it had to be true.
And now that she thought about it, Tsukishima did have the tendency to… hover. Although the responses to Yamaguchi’s flirting were always positive, the blonde was always hesitant about returning the gestures.
There were times when Tsukishima would make a move to brush Yamaguchi’s overgrown bangs out of her eyes, or fiddle with the latest repurposed jewelry around her neck, or create some similar intimate moment—and nine times out of ten the blonde would pull back with a scandalized look on her face. Like she couldn’t believe she had almost done that.
The first time it occurred, Yamaguchi hadn’t known what to do with herself, because she too, had been leaning closer, like a cat arching its back to meet their owner’s palm on their way to pet them. It had her drawing back in embarrassment and laughing awkwardly to clear the tension the fumble had created.
Yamaguchi still remembered how strained their friendship had been then, and how it had taken a while to fix it back to the way it was before. Things were better now, and thankfully, Tsukishima never recoiled from her touches, but it still hurt to think about the one-sidedness of it all.
“Whatever she’s dealing with is her business until she lets you in on it. But you have to be prepared for when that happens,” her friend concluded.
Yamaguchi took a long slow sip from her half-forgotten iced coffee, mulling over Yachi's advice. She didn't know how much longer she could wait. She hoped Tsukishima would make up her mind already.